


The Man in the Chair

by MiladyDragon



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of TAHITI, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Language, Major Character Injury, Multi, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, TAHITI Gone Wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 21:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12566260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiladyDragon/pseuds/MiladyDragon
Summary: SHIELD has fallen.  Tony Stark is trying to pick up the pieces, and in an isolated SHIELD long-term care facility he finds someone he thought was long dead...





	The Man in the Chair

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 2017 Marvel Bang, and is my first time participating. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> I want to thank my beta, totally4ryo, and for her work to get this up to snuff and for cheerleading me on. Without her my writing wouldn't be as good. 
> 
> Banner By knowmefirst over on LJ. Isn't it great?
> 
> This takes place after the events in "Captain America: the Winter Soldier", and is about what might have happened if the TAHITI treatment had gone very wrong. There are some medical terms in here that might very well be wrong, and all I can do is blame my Google-Fu and my love for medical dramas for any mistakes. There are also a few allusions to the Hawkeye comic, made to fit the timeline.

                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                           

 

 

He didn’t even know his own name.

The nurses and aides kept calling him Agent Clark, but that didn’t sound right.

Although, it wasn’t as if he could physically answer to it if it _was_ his name.

They told him he’d suffered a critical injury.  The scar on his chest was proof enough of that.  But it had also created a blood clot that had caused catastrophic brain damage, which was why he couldn’t remember anything of his life, and why he couldn’t speak or take care of himself any longer.

They threw around various diagnoses, but he had no idea what any of those medical terms meant.  All he knew was he was confined to a wheelchair, with almost no hope of getting better.

Therapists did come every day, though; physical and occupational and speech therapists.  They kept his muscles from completely atrophying, and his throat working to swallow the soft foods he was fed at mealtimes. 

The nurses and orderlies would speak to him, chattering on in the silence he exuded, telling him of their own lives as if that would help him regain his own.  It didn’t work.

Well, there was that one thing.

One of the therapists had gone on his honeymoon. 

To Tahiti.

He hadn’t even been aware that he’d spoken until every single person following his case showed up in his room.

_“It’s a magical place.”_

That was the only thing he’d said in the entire time he’d been in the facility.  He knew how long that was because, even though his memories and body weren’t working, his sense of time passing was.

Nine months, three weeks, two days…and counting.  He couldn’t count the hours, minutes, or seconds, as he hadn’t paid that close attention when he first woke up in the tiny room, with its single bed, television, dresser, closet, and private bath.  It was bare and lacking in any personal touches at all…not that he would have been able to tell if anything was personal to him, since he had no idea who he was and what his interests had once been.

Speaking meant they’d done all sorts of tests on him in order to figure out what had triggered it.  The MRI was an adventure, getting his unresponsive body onto the sliding table had earned him bruised shins when the orderly helping with positioning him had missed the mark.  He didn’t cry out; he’d forgotten how.

Then the doctor who was taking the scans had mentioned Tahiti again.

According to the nurse who’d tutted over the bruises, his brain had lit up like a Christmas tree with that single word, and then had faded quickly back into the muted colors that signified the massive amount of damage he’d suffered from the stroke.

They were all puzzled by it, she confided.

So was he, even if he couldn’t communicate that to her.

Because, even though there was no hope, he still wanted to fight.

He wanted to know who he was, whoever this Agent Paul Clark was. 

He was positive it wasn’t him, but he didn’t know how he knew that.

Oh, and there was his wife.

She visited every week.  Every time she came into the room, she’d ask if he remembered her, and that her name was Bobbi.  She was a beautiful blonde, nicely built, and she would tell him about her week and what was going on outside the walls of the facility he was now living in.  He would listen attentively, even though he couldn’t show her he was but, somehow, she seemed to know he was hearing what she was saying.

The thing was, he was certain he wasn’t married.

He felt absolutely nothing for her.  She was a stranger to him. 

There were times when, if he closed his eyes, he could just make out a different blond, darker, almost brown; a ghost behind his eyelids, a man with changeable eyes and impressive arms and a smile that lit up his face. 

It was confusing, and yet comforting at the same time.

When she heard about his blurted response to the word Tahiti, she went still, something lurking behind her dark eyes that would have frightened him if he hadn’t wanted answers so very badly.  Then she smiled, and claimed they’d honeymooned there. 

He didn’t believe her. 

She wasn’t the one he wanted to see, although who that was he had no idea, and there was no way he could find out who his mysterious vision was.

But she came once a week, and he would be rolled out in his chair into the common area, and they’d sit and she’d talk to him as if she knew him, when he didn’t know her at all.

And then, one week, she didn’t come.

He found he wasn’t disappointed in that.

It wasn’t long after, though, that his world changed forever.

 

**********

 

Iron Man flew over the smallish compound below, sensors taking readings even as Tony Stark looked down onto a scene of destruction.

In the two days since SHIELD fell, Tony had been straining through the information that Cap and the Widow had downloaded onto the internet, shocked at what he was finding.  HYDRA had done an excellent job at infiltrating SHIELD, and it had been a fight for him to figure out who was innocent in all this, and who’d been a filthy traitor, and doing what he could to help those who were swiftly becoming collateral damage in the upheaval that had followed.

Anytime he discovered someone who hadn’t been HYDRA and who was in serious danger, Tony would scrub the information out of the sheer mass of data and hide it away on one of JARVIS’ secondary servers, the best to get the innocents out of the crossfire.  While Tony could understand why Rogers and Romanov had done it the way they had, he couldn’t help but wonder if they’d taken into consideration the families of agents and the victims that SHIELD had been responsible in saving when they’d decided to burn SHIELD to the ground and salt the earth.  Already, Tony had been too late to many of them, and it was eating at him that he hadn’t been fast enough, or that the two of them hadn’t obviously trusted him enough to come to him when they’d discovered HYDRA’s presence within SHIELD.  If they had, he could have done some pinpoint data-mining and outed HYDRA for the rot they’d been within an organization that had done a lot of good out there.

Still, he was doing what he could to save those who needed saving.

Which was why he was currently hovering over the compound that had been built up on the side of a Vermont mountain.

JARVIS had been listening in on SHIELD radio frequencies when he’d received the SOS.  The person on the other end of the connection had sounded panicked, and it had taken the AI a few moments to track the signal to this location. 

The lady on the comm had claimed that this was a SHIELD long-term care facility for agents who’d been injured in the line of duty, and that they were under attack by HYDRA.  Why the terrorist bastards would go after such a place didn’t make any sense, but then they were the bad guys for a reason. 

And so, Tony had climbed into the armor and had flown to the rescue, despite Pepper’s concerns that it could have been some sort of trap. 

Sure, she had a point, but there was no way Tony was going to let HYDRA get away with hurting people who couldn’t defend themselves.  Besides, the facility had been in the information that had been released to the public, so that was a plus on the side of it being a legitimate call for help.

The compound wasn’t large.  There were two wings, with a distinctive round hub-like shape in the center of the structure.  Trees surrounded the building, and a single road wove its way up the mountain to end in a parking lot along one wing, with several vehicles including a smallish bus parked there. 

The building was constructed of brick, with large windows…most of which were currently broken.  One of the cars in the lot was smoking, and there were obvious burn marks marring the redness of the brick, as well as chipped places where bullets must have hit.

Tony set down on a walkway that led to the main doors, which were in the hub area.  One of the doors had been wrenched off its hinges, and the other shattered; he picked his way carefully toward them, one hand outstretched, repulsor powered up and ready.

A gun pointed at him through the door.  “Identify yourself,” a female voice demanded.  There was a shadow just past the doors, hidden by a section of wall. 

“I should think it’s obvious who I am,” Tony answered, rolling his eyes despite being somewhat impressed by the response at his presence.  After all, the armor was pretty identifiable.  “I picked up a distress call from here, and was coming to help.”

The gun didn’t waver, but the shadow stepped forward, resolving itself into a tall, thin woman, with blonde hair going to gray and pinned up on her head in a really messy bun.  She was wearing a dark blue pantsuit that had seen better days, and had a bandage around her left bicep, stained a little with blood.  “I need to see,” she replied, “please open the helmet.  I need to make sure you’re really Tony Stark.”

Well, a healthy dose of caution was always a good thing.  Tony decided to take the risk, and opened up the front of his helmet.  “There’s only one Tony Stark,” he quipped, “and I’m pretty sure I’m him.”

The woman lowered the gun, looking relieved at confirming it really was him.  “Thank God.  I’m Dr. Jennifer Durance, the Administrator of this facility.  Thank you for coming, Mr. Stark.”

“How many are there of you here?” he asked as he followed her back into the building.

They stepped into a lobby that had obviously been the scene of a pretty massive gun battle.  There were overturned pieces of equipment and furniture that had been used as shelters and barricades; there were no bodies, but then he figured they must have been cleared away.  There were bloodstains, though, so it looked as if no one had got through this unscathed.

“Ten staff and six patients uninjured,” Dr. Durance answered.  “We have seven wounded, total.  We…lost twelve, and those were mostly patients who couldn’t even defend themselves.”  Her voice shook with anger.  “There was one HYDRA agent here, and we’re sure that’s how they knew where to send their shock troops.  Although why they’d want to strike here, I don’t know…”

“Who knows with fucking HYDRA?”

“I just can’t believe they were in SHIELD all this time…”  She sounded shell-shocked, and Tony couldn’t blame her.

There were several other staff members emerging from the hallways, all armed.  Each and every one of them had expressions of shock on their faces, but that was mixed with helpings of fear, terror, and anger.  Tony couldn’t believe they’d managed to hold off HYDRA with just the handful of non-combatants they had; it impressed the shit out of him.

“I’ve arranged for one of my jets to land at the local airport,” Tony said.  “You have a way to get your people there?”

She nodded.  “We have a facility bus we can use.”  He’d seen it, out in the parking lot. 

The look she was giving him was one of pure gratitude. “I can’t thank you enough for this…”

He waved a gauntlet at her.  “No, these people didn’t deserve being attacked like that.  If I can help, I will.”

Doctor Durance began giving orders to her people, and they scattered down the halls, gathering up supplies and the few patients that had survived the attack.  Tony could understand the very real fury at what HYDRA had done, coming after disabled agents for no reason other than that they were SHIELD.  If didn’t make any sense at all, and it made him want to blast a few things.

“I understand we can’t do anything about the ones who…were killed,” the administrator murmured, “but can I ask that you destroy this place once we leave?  I don’t want HYDRA to come back here and do anything to the…bodies.  I don’t know that they will, but I don’t want to take the chance, and it would be a proper memorial for the ones who lost their lives here.”

“What about their families?”

“The patients who were sent here didn’t really have anyone to look out for them, and the staff was chosen because they either didn’t have family, or didn’t mind being separated from them for long periods of time, since this place is so far off the beaten path and there aren’t a lot of us staff to begin with.  It was better that way.”

That made a form of sense.  When Tony had flown in, he’d noticed immediately that the place had been out in the middle of nowhere; the nearest city had to have been a good fifty miles away.  SHIELD would have most likely flown in supplies or had them trucked in.  There hadn’t seemed to have been that many people there, anyway.

“This spot was chosen because the patients who come here would have had problems integrating back into society,” Doctor Durance went on.  “It was peaceful and quiet for the ones who were so badly damaged they just couldn’t handle being out there in the world.  I’m not saying there weren’t some who could be rehabilitated, but on the whole the ones who come here have no hope of dealing with normal life, or needed extraordinary care.  Also, most of the agents here were high-level, and it wouldn’t do for word about them to get out to their enemies.”  She sighed.  “Not that that seemed to have worked, in the end.”

That would explain why HYDRA had attacked.  If the patients here were all higher level, they’d have valuable information on SHIELD.  Or they’d wanted revenge, which was a very HYDRA thing to want.

“I can make sure this place is wiped off the map,” he assured her.  His repulsors could bring down the side of the mountain, bury the entire place in tons of rubble. 

The doctor looked relieved.  “Thank you for that, Mr. Stark.”

Tony felt slightly embarrassed by her gratitude.  “For now, we’ll get these people to Stark Tower.  I have a full medical section there.  Then, we can look at options that will keep them safe from HYDRA.”

Doctor Durance nodded.  “I’m certain there aren’t any other HYDRA people in with my staff.  The one there was had immediately joined the attackers.  They probably thought we were an easy target.”  She lifted her chin proudly.  “None of us are field-trained, so we did the best we could.  None of the patients could help…well, except for Agent Clark, and that was a surprise.  He’s one of the worst off here.”

She didn’t elaborate, and Tony didn’t ask.  He wasn’t medical personnel, and there was no reason for him to know anything about the physical conditions of the former agents who’d been living there.  He just wanted to make sure they were alright, and to get them out of there in case HYDRA decided to come back.

A trickle of people began heading down the left-side hallway; wounded being supported by staff in stained and bloodied scrubs; or pushed in wheelchairs.  Two were on gurneys, and even though he didn’t have any sort of medical training he could tell they were in bad shape.  He only hoped his medical section was up to the task, but then he’d designed it for Avengers-level injuries, so if they could be saved they’d be saved.

There were also the ones who were obviously patients, in their pajamas and robes.  None of them were ambulatory; Tony could see various types of physical scarring, and was willing to bet that each and every one of them had some sort of mental scarring as well. 

But it was the man in the wheelchair that had him very glad that his armor kept his knees from buckling. 

He was thin and far too pale, eyes unfocussed as the nurse pushed him along.  Hand were folded loosely onto the blanket that covered his legs.  A cut was butterflied together over his right eyebrow, and his knuckles were scraped.

The man didn’t look like any sort of secret agent.  In fact, he resembled nothing more than an accountant.  But Tony knew better. 

His shock must have been really evident, because Dr. Durance was staring at him in concern.  “Are you alright, Mr. Stark?”

Tony stepped in front of the wheelchair, his armor clanking slightly as he moved.  The nurse pulled the chair to a stop in surprise.  “Coulson?” he gasped, almost soundlessly.

This was impossible.  He’d seen the footage of Coulson’s confrontation with Loki.  There was no way in hell Agent could have survived. 

But he had.  And the evidence was sitting in a wheelchair in a SHIELD-run nursing home on a mountain in Vermont.

“Do you know Agent Clark?” Dr. Durance asked curiously. 

Tony turned upset eyes on her.  “No, his name’s not Clark.  It’s Coulson.  Phil Coulson.  And he’s supposed to be dead.”

 

**********

 

Natasha Romanov managed to sneak out of the Senate building without any of the reporters catching sight of her.

It had been bad enough that her testimony had been in front of cameras.  As a spy, she was used to being out of the spotlight; had done her best to keep out of them, in fact.  Being an Avenger had changed that in a way, had made the Black Widow an international celebrity even though she still managed to stay out of the press as much as possible.  It was fairly easy, actually, as there were several, much larger, personalities on the team, and Stark was always good for a sound bite. 

But this, putting herself on display as she had, was going to take some getting used to.

With Steve still in the hospital, it had been up to her to appear in front of Congress for the hearings about SHIELD and HYDRA.  Someone had needed to step up and explain what had occurred, and it had been left to her. Honestly, she would have preferred it be Steve, but there was nothing for it, and so she’d done what she had to do to get the truth out there.

There was a car waiting for her outside the building she’d cut through in order to get away from the reporters waiting to grill her some more on what had happened over Washington, DC.

It seemed as if she hadn’t been as stealthy has she’d thought.  She’d have to work on that.

The rear door of the silver Escalade opened, to reveal Pepper Potts.

That made Natasha feel just a little better about getting caught sneaking away.

“Are you done making Tony’s appearance in front of Congress look like a tea party?” The words were teasing, the tone not so much.

Natasha prided herself on being able to keep herself under control in any circumstance, but there was something about Pepper being there that made her wary.  There was no reason whatsoever for her to be there; Stark Industries had only been on the periphery of events, having been the company that had sold the repulsor tech to SHIELD for their new helicarriers.

“Get in,” Pepper said. 

No, she _ordered_.

Natasha bristled at that.  Pepper had no right to order her to do anything.

However, she was also curious.  There had to be a good reason for Stark’s CEO to be there in Washington, in a car and fetching her like Pepper was some sort of assistant instead of one of the most powerful women in the world. 

Something was wrong.  Natasha wanted to know what that was.

So, she climbed into the back of the Escalade, sitting beside Pepper and buckling herself in. 

Pepper told the driver to take them to the airport.

Natasha let herself relax outwardly into the comfortable leather seat, keeping silent, waiting to see what Pepper would do next.

It turned out, she did nothing.  Pepper simply sat there, eyes ahead, not saying anything at all.

The quiet lasted the entire drive to the airport.

Natasha was surprised, to say the least.

Usually, people wanted to fill an uncomfortable silence, and this was more than just uncomfortable.  It was obvious Pepper was upset about something, even with the impassive mask she was wearing.  Still, she said not a word as the driver navigated midday traffic, her face closed off. 

Something was wrong.  It was obvious.  Natasha thought she knew Pepper Potts as well as she could, having worked with her back when Stark had been dying from Palladium poisoning.  She thought she had a pretty good handle on what made the woman tick, and Natasha could see that Pepper wasn’t saying anything out of a need not to explode.

Could it have something to do with Stark?  After all, the man could be absolutely infuriating.  Had he done something that Pepper needed Natasha to clean up?  There hadn’t been anything on the news, but then she’d been a bit distracted with acting out of her comfort zone and testifying in front of Congress. 

The private Stark jet was on the runway, and the Escalade was allowed to drive almost right up to it, past a security checkpoint that had the guard on duty asking for everyone’s ID and making certain they were who they claimed.  The woman waved them through as soon as she confirmed their _bona_ _fides_ , and Natasha had to admit she could understand the need for security, in this world post-SHIELD.

Steve and Sam were both already in the plane.

Natasha was surprised.  Steve should still be in the hospital, and yet there he was…in one of the plush leather seats, looking bruised and tired and yet not as bad as he could have been.  Sam was practically hovering, and he smiled as soon as he caught sight of Natasha stepping onboard.  “So, they invited you to the party as well?” he quipped as she joined them.

“Should he even be out of the hospital?” She indicated Steve.

“Nope,” Sam answered, “but he insisted once we were summoned.”

“He’s an idiot.”

“He is sitting right here,” Steve cut in. 

Natasha sat next to him, patting him on the knee.  “Yes, you are.”

“Do we even know what’s going on?” Steve asked.

Natasha glanced up, but Pepper had vanished, most likely up to the cockpit.  “No idea.  Something to do with Stark, most likely.”

An attendant strolled through the cabin, indicating that Sam should take a seat and that they should all buckle in for the flight to New York.  Then she closed and secured the entry door, locking them inside the jet.

Pepper didn’t make another appearance until the jet was in the air, about twenty minutes later.

She took a seat, swiveling it so she faced the three of them, her face grave.  “I have some questions I’d like to ask before we arrive in New York, if I may.”

Looks passed between the three of them.  Natasha thought it wasn’t about Stark, then, if Pepper was making inquiries.

“I need to know,” the woman went on, “if the three of you considered the consequences of your actions when you released the SHIELD files to the public.”

That…wasn’t at all what Natasha has been expecting.

Steve sat up, flinching slightly in pain.  “It had to be done,” he said.  “HYDRA had to be brought out into the open, and the best and only way to do that was to bring SHIELD down.”

“I’m not asking if it had to be done,” Pepper snapped, anger suddenly showing.  “I’m asking if you considered the consequences.  Of bringing attention to the innocents in those files, like friends and family of SHIELD agents, and the agents that were currently undercover or…or who’d retired or were too injured to fight back if HYDRA came calling.”

Steve’s face flushed, and he was apparently getting angry as well.  “In every war there are acceptable losses, Ms. Potts.  Unfortunately, we had to weigh the greater good against any small losses that might come from outing HYDRA in SHIELD.”

To be honest, Natasha hadn’t really thought about it at the time.  SHIELD had been her home for a very long time, and to have that sort of rot exposed…it had had her questioning everything she’d done as a SHIELD agent.  What missions she’d run that she’d thought was for the greater good, and had actually been backed by factions of HYDRA who’d wanted to spread their version of chaos under the guise of protecting the world from threats.  It had made her angry, and she’d given into the need to lash out and destroy nearly everything she’d once held dear.

“There are no acceptable losses, Captain,” Pepper returned angrily.  “Not if one innocent person dies because you just had to wreck SHIELD in order to cut out a particular cancer that was growing within it.  Now, Stark Industries is picking up the pieces of your Scorched Earth policy, and it’s ugly and you are responsible for every single thing HYDRA has done because you decided to take matters into your own hands instead of asking for alternatives.  It is your fault that HYDRA is now getting its revenge, and you and your happy little band of vigilantes are going to do something about it.”

Steve’s jaw was jumping, and Natasha thought she could hear his teeth grinding.  Sam looked gutted, as if everything Pepper had said had stabbed him in the chest.  Natasha had to wonder if he’d considered things before Steve had acted, but hadn’t said anything because he couldn’t come up with anything else to do, and was now feeling guilty about his part in events.

“Why are you so up in arms over this?” Natasha asked.  Because this had to be something more than Pepper being upset over a few agents being hurt.  “I’d have thought you and Stark would have been happy that we stopped HYDRA from using Project Insight to kill millions of these so-called ‘innocent’ people, which would have most likely included yourself _and_ Stark.  Certainly, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

Yes, she was quoting _Star Trek,_ but the sentiment wasn’t any less true.

“I’m up in arms, so to speak,” the CEO gritted, “because you haven’t been cleaning up this shit.  Tony and I have.  We’ve been on the ground, answering distress calls and trying to extract agents from assignments because their covers have been blown.  We’ve been the ones following up on reports of children being injured or killed in attacks perpetrated by HYDRA, because personnel records were leaked as well.  Because Tony found a good friend in a SHIELD-run long-term nursing facility, where HYDRA attacked and murdered patients _who couldn’t fight back_.”

The sheer venom in her voice had Natasha wanting to flinch, but she refused.  She’d known that SHIELD claimed to look after its own, but she hadn’t been aware of any sort of long-term care facilities.  Apparently some had existed, and she couldn’t help feeling just a little guilty about it. 

Sam had such an expression on his face…but then, he’d been with the VA, and had seen and dealt with broken people like what Pepper had been describing.  He must have been feeling as if he’d somehow failed the agents who’d been at home in such a facility. 

As for Steve…he didn’t look happy at the recriminations that Pepper was spewing, but Natasha knew Steve, knew he’d be stubbornly clinging to the notion that they’d done the right thing, and that HYDRA had to have been taken down no matter the cost. 

But something she’d said…

“What do you mean?” she asked.  “What about a good friend you said Stark found?”

Pepper’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t answer.  Instead, she turned to the large plasma screen television at the front of the cabin, using a control to turn it on, then to program it to show the interior of a well-appointed medical suite, high-tech equipment tucked around various beds and chairs that were scattered about the place. 

Several people were moving around the area, some of them wearing basic nurses’ scrubs while there were a couple in white coats, and were obviously doctors.  One of them, a woman with graying blonde hair, seemed to notice that they were being watched, and she bustled to stand in front of the monitor.  _“Ms. Potts,”_ she greeted Pepper warmly.  Then her smile faded somewhat as her eyes took in the plane’s other ‘guests’, narrowing a little in anger. 

“Doctor Durance,” the CEO greeted in return.  “I’d like you to meet – “

_“I know who they are,”_ Doctor Durance interrupted, her words harsh with condemnation. 

“This is Doctor Jennifer Durance,” Pepper continued the introductions, as if there hadn’t been an outburst, “she’s the Administrator of the long-term care facility I mentioned.  She and her people managed to fight off a HYDRA strike team that attacked her facility, killing twelve helpless patients whose only crime was that they’d once been high-ranking SHIELD agents who could no longer take care of themselves because of injuries sustained in the line of duty.”

_“Thirteen, now,”_ Dr. Durance corrected.  _“We lost one just after you left.”_ Her anger morphed into helpless sadness. 

“I’m sorry,” Sam murmured.  Natasha was more than a little worried about him.

The doctor’s anger returned in a rush.  _“It’s fine to be sorry now, but where were you when a bunch of nurses and orderlies were fighting to protect our patients?”_

“HYDRA had to be taken down,” Steve replied.  “There was no choice.”

_“There’s always a choice, Captain,”_ Dr. Durance snapped.  _“You just went for the one that meant innocent people were slaughtered.”_

“Doctor,” Pepper cut into what might have turned into a shouting match, “I was wondering if you could bring Agent Clark to the screen.”

There was something in the way Pepper said, ‘Agent Clark’ that had Natasha sliding forward to perch on the edge of her seat.  She’d met a couple of agents by that name in her time with SHIELD, but didn’t think that Pepper had known any of them.  The request seemed off, and Natasha didn’t know what it was. 

_“I’ll be glad to.”_ The doctor left the area of the camera, leaving them with the scene of patients and nurses once again.  Natasha wanted to turn away, but she couldn’t.

Taking down SHIELD had seemed like the correct thing to do at the time.  But now, she was beginning to see just how that had affected people who truly had been innocent; these people hadn’t deserved to end up as victims in the war between HYDRA and SHIELD. 

And yet, they had. 

She glanced toward Steve, and she could tell he was close to arguing once again with Pepper about what they’d done.  He was a good man, but he had a tendency to be a bit blinkered when he thought he was right, despite what evidence he might have had to the contrary.  It would take something momentous to get him to change his mind; he still really hadn’t done that with his attitude toward Stark, which was one of the reasons he hadn’t called on the billionaire when things were at their worst.  Certainly, he’d seen a side of Tony Stark that he hadn’t expected to when Iron Man had willingly flown a nuclear warhead into a tear in the fabric of space and had nearly died doing it, but there were still the lingering doubts in Steve’s mind about the genius’ dedication to the cause.

Maybe if they’d gone to Stark, they might have come up with a different plan than what Pepper had called their “Scorched Earth” approach.

Well, it was too late now.  It was done, and there was still work to do.  HYDRA was still out there, gone to ground no matter what the US military thought. 

There was movement on the screen, and the moment Natasha caught sight of the figure in the wheelchair that Dr. Durance was pushing, she forgot to breathe.

He was much changed from the last time she’d seen him, on the Helicarrier before all hell had broken loose in the form of a mad Trickster God with a mind-controlling spear.  He was thinner, and paler, his eyes blank and his hair a little longer than he’d ever worn it before.  The pajamas he had on were baggy, and there was a blanket over his legs, hands resting half-curled in his lap. 

“As you can see,” Pepper said softly, recrimination clear in her voice, “our old friend isn’t quite the way any of us remember him.”

Steve said something that he would have called down anyone else for saying; Natasha could hear Sam asking just who it was that had both of them so rattled. 

Her lips moved along silently as Steve spoke the name of the man in the wheelchair.

Phil Coulson.

 

**********

 

He knew the man in the red and gold.  He came with whispered words, _I will tase you and watch Supernanny while you drool on the carpet._ There was irritation and fondness in unequal measure.

He also knew the woman with the bright hair.  She was coffee and sandwiches and laughter and friendship.

But who they were to him floated just outside of reach.

They called him _Coulson_ , and _Phil_ , and somehow those seemed right to him.  _Agent_ _Clark_ wasn’t him, but _Phil_ _Coulson_ was. 

They moved him to a large room that wasn’t familiar, but for some reason he felt safe.  The man – now out of the red and gold – came to talk to him, but he couldn’t respond.  He wanted to…but he couldn’t, it was beyond him now.

The woman cried.  He wished he could tell her that it was going to be alright, but he was unable to for a couple of reasons…one being, of course, that he couldn’t say it out loud because the words would not come, and the other was that he really wasn’t sure it would be. 

There was another man.  He believed this man was someone he’d once met, but not the same way he knew the red and gold man – Tony – and the bright-haired woman – Pepper.  This man was tentative, and kind, and said his name was Bruce.  For some reason, it felt as if he should be wary of this man, but he wasn’t.  The flash of something large and green was through his mind and gone so fast he wasn’t even certain he hadn’t been imagining it.

There was a second woman.  This one was young, and had an accent that he was certain he should know.  She called him ‘Sir’ and kept trying to reassure him that they were doing everything they could to help him get better.  She talked a lot, telling him that she’d been in SHIELD, like he’d been, but that they’d never met.  That Tony – only she called him Mr. Stark – had saved her and her best friend when HYDRA had attacked their lab.

That word, HYDRA, made him afraid and angry at the same time.  He didn’t know why, and he couldn’t even communicate that to her.

Her name was Jemma, she said.  Her best friend was Fitz.  He hadn’t met Fitz yet.  She was a doctor, like the doctor he’d tried to protect when the explosions and the fighting had happened.  He still thought _that_ part of his memory was some sort of dream, though.

And then, the red-haired woman had come.

Now she…she was familiar, like the constant ache in his chest from where he’d been hurt.  She was _friend,_ and _agent,_ and something else he had no words to explain, even if he could.  She wasn’t afraid to take his hand in hers, and the warmth of it made him weep, although it was as silent as everything else he did now.  She spoke to him, but he didn’t understand the words at first before he figured out she was using another language.  It was harsh against his ears, but at the same time soothing.

Her name, she told him, was Natasha. 

She confused him.

But she also made him feel safe.

The two men she brought with her, though, were different.

The dark man calling himself Sam was just as kind as Bruce was.  He didn’t know Sam, but for some reason that was fine.  Sam talked to him more than anyone, as if he kept expecting a response, but didn’t seem disappointed when he didn’t get one. 

The other man was someone he knew, as well.

Steve, he introduced himself. 

Flashes of red and white and blue, of cards with pictures on them came, unbidden, with the introduction.  At first, he thought this was the blond man that he kept appearing in his dreams, but no.  This man was different; lighter hair, plus his eyes were blue, and not ones that seemed to change color depending on the man’s mood.  His arms, while impressive, weren’t the same, either. 

No, this wasn’t the one who kept coming to him like a ghost from the dead, even though there was something about him that spoke to him…he simply didn’t know what that _was_.

He wanted the man from his fractured thoughts, but didn’t know how to ask.

 

**********

 

It was a known historical fact that Steve Rogers hated bullies.

He’d been standing up to them since before the serum, back when he’d been a puny ninety-pound weakling who got beat up more than he’d done the beating.  Bucky had often despaired of him, swearing that Steve was going to get himself killed before he turned eighteen.

That hadn’t happened, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Thinking of Bucky made his chest hurt, so he stopped.

He’d volunteered to take the serum because of his hatred for bullies.  He’d gone to war for the same reason, although it had taken him a bit to break out of the USO circuit they’d thought he was only good for.  Steve had proved the brass wrong, and had stood up against the Nazis and HYDRA and he hadn’t backed down, even though it had cost him his best friend and his old life.

And so, when he’d awakened in the future, and the Chitauri attacked, Steve had stepped up once again, because Loki had been the ultimate bully and had brought friends along for the ride.  There had been a lot of deaths, but Steve wanted to think they’d minimized them as much as they possibly could.

One of those deaths was currently sitting in a wheelchair two floors below, completely unresponsive.

That man had been the reason he and Stark had finally come together, to fight a new war with an alien race that had come through a portal in space.  Steve had quite liked Phil Coulson, and at the time had thought he and the agent might have, one day, become friends.  He’d genuinely mourned the man when he’d died.

Then HYDRA had reappeared, and it had made Steve doubt that the good man who’d faced down an alien god with untested weaponry had been all that good, after all.

It had been a question that had plagued him: had Coulson been HYDRA?  Had his well-meaning and competent personality hidden yet another bully?

HYDRA being in SHIELD had also made him doubt Peggy.  Which wasn’t right at all.  After all, she and Howard had been the ones in charge, who’d recruited former HYDRA scientists and personnel into SHIELD after it had transitioned from the SSR.  That had led directly to the decision he’d had to make: to take down SHIELD, root out the rotten bits and leave the rest to shrivel.

Finding out that Bucky, his best friend, had been brainwashed by HYDRA to be the Winter Soldier had really been the last straw.  SHIELD hadn’t deserved to survive after that.

To be honest, he hadn’t really considered the innocent people who would be affected by his actions.  Well, that wasn’t exactly true; he’d thought of the agents who’d worked for SHIELD, who’d inadvertently taken HYDRA orders, and had believed they’d understand his actions.  That taking down the place they’d sworn their allegiance to and that had lied to them in return would be nearly universally accepted as necessary.  That they would feel just as betrayed as he had.

It turned out he hadn’t taken other issues into consideration.

Facing Agent Coulson, who didn’t respond to his presence except to follow his movements with confused and vague, unfocused eyes had been one of the most difficult things Steve had had to do.  And he’d done some _really_ difficult things, and he’d been almost pitifully grateful when the orderly who’d brought Coulson in had wheeled him out once more, to go back to the Medical floor that Stark had set up.

Sam had gone with them.  That didn’t surprise Steve one bit, because Sam was a good person and would want to help all he could.

Coulson _had_ reacted, though, when Natasha had taken his hand: he’d wept, silently, as if he truly had known who she was and it had hurt him to see her.  Maybe it had, since she’d been sure to tell him stories of the man when he’d asked. 

He was in Stark’s lab, seated on a ragged-looking but comfortable couch while his ribs protested.  He still wasn’t healed, but he was getting there, and with his enhanced metabolism he thought it might be another couple of days before he was back to fighting trim. 

Despite himself, Steve was impressed with the lab.  This was what he’d expected of the future: robots, and high-tech gizmos, and a rather snarky artificial intelligence that went by the name of JARVIS.  He would have enjoyed it a lot if he wasn’t there for the reason he was.

“I want to know why Coulson isn’t dead,” Natasha was asking.  She stood against one of the workbenches, arms crossed, staring at Stark as if her gaze could drill into his brain and pluck the answer right out of the man’s thoughts and seeming more rattled than Steve had ever seen her be. 

“No idea,” Stark answered.  He was ostensibly working on a new version of the Iron Man armor, but Steve could tell it was just to keep his hands busy.  “All I know is I found him in that place in Vermont, going under the name of Paul Clark.”

Pepper was glowering at Steve, and the super-soldier was doing his best to ignore it.  Apparently, she and Coulson had been friends, and that was carrying over into what looked to be growing into a hatred for Steve and everything he’d stood for.  Steve couldn’t let it bother him.  Or, at least he tried not to.

“According to the medical records we have,” Banner put in, fiddling with the glasses he held in one hand, “the reason he was there was due to injuries sustained during the Battle…which is true to a large extent, I guess.  The injury was supposedly due to being impaled by a Chitauri weapon, and during his recovery he threw a blood clot that caused a massive stroke.  He’s completely unresponsive…except for an incident that the doctor who’d been assigned to the facility couldn’t explain.”

“Unfortunately,” Stark took up the tale, “that particular doctor was one of the first casualties when HYDRA attacked the facility, so we can’t ask him anything about it.  We also can’t ask how Coulson was able to fight off HYDRA when they attacked the facility, according to Dr. Durance.”

“What about Dr. Durance?” Steve wanted to know.

Stark shrugged.  “She’s the Administrator.  Her degree is in psychology, not neurology.  She only knows what’s in the reports.  We do have a doctor here now – a nice young SHIELD agent named Jemma Simmons – who says there’s a lot more to the story than what the records claim.”

Natasha rolled his eyes at that.  “Of course there is.  We all know how Coulson really died.  Or supposedly died.”

“And you really trust this Dr. Simmons?” Steve demanded.  “She’s SHIELD.”

Pepper snorted.  “I trust Jemma a lot more than I trust you at this moment.”

Steve didn’t flinch at that rather pointed barb.  He felt he had a right at the moment to be suspicious of anyone who’d been in SHIELD.

“She and her partner, Leopold Fitz, are the only survivors out of a SHIELD-run lab in Upstate New York,” Stark added, recrimination heavy in his words.  “They managed to hide while HYDRA killed every single one of their co-workers.  I saved them when they managed to get an SOS out.” 

“They were SHIELD agents,” Steve pointed out.  “They knew the risks.”

Stark slammed a hand down on the bench, hard enough to rattle the tools scattered about on it. “They’re _kids_ , Cap.  Traumatized kids who were never supposed to go out into the field, let alone find themselves in the middle of a massacre.  They didn’t deserve what happened to them any more than those poor patients at SHIELD’s medical facility did.”

“At least your new friend seems to realize that,” Pepper said. 

Sam had obviously been devastated at Coulson’s condition, even if he’d never met the man before today.  Of course he’d wanted to help, and with his background Steve thought he’d be the best one to do it.

“What did this Dr. Simmons say?” Natasha cut in, obviously wanting to get them back on track.

Banner looked a little relieved by that.  While he didn’t show any signs of the Hulk making an appearance, Steve knew that could be a genuine worry.  “She took scans of the original wound area.”  With a flick of his wrist, he activated one of the many holographic displays that were placed about the lab, and he requested JARVIS to put up Coulson’s latest scans.

Even though Steve wasn’t any sort of doctor, even he could tell from what he was seeing that Coulson really should have been dead.

Natasha said something sharp in Russian, and he didn’t need a translation to know it was a curse word.

“Loki’s spear penetrated here,” Bruce indicated the entry wound on the scan, “and exited here,” he pointed once more.  “From the trajectory the spear took, it would have easily shredded Coulson’s heart.  And yet, it’s perfectly fine.”

“And it shouldn’t be,” Natasha stated.

“What the hell?” Steve couldn’t help but blurt.  He felt somewhat horrified, but at the same time… “Is he some sort of super-soldier?”

Banner shook his head.  “Jemma did take blood for testing, and she says not.  However, she did find something in Agent Coulson’s blood that she couldn’t identify.  And, if she didn’t know what it was…”  He shrugged, almost helplessly.

“What did Fury do?”  Natasha growled. 

Because Nick Fury had to have been behind this; it was something he would do.

Stark shrugged.  “Who knows?  It’s too bad he’s dead and we’ll never get to ask him, because this really has the one-eyed pirate’s boot prints all over it.”

“Fury isn’t dead,” the Widow dropped that particular bombshell into their midst.  “He faked his death when HYDRA tried to assassinate him.  He was with us at the Triskelion.”

“You mean Fury agreed with your dropping all of SHIELD’s files on the open internet?”  Tony demanded, outraged.  “No, wait…of course he did.  It would have had to have taken his access to get to everything.”

“We…didn’t give him much of a choice,” Steve admitted.  “Although he did eventually see the need to do it.”  Fury had argued against it, but Steve had overridden him with all the conviction he’d had that this was the only way.  It had seemed a little too easy at the time, but Fury had been injured, and in a way Steve has taken advantage of that, so certain his way had been the correct one.

He was beginning to see just what consequences his actions had had, but he still couldn’t bring himself to regret burning SHIELD to the ground, not after what he’d discovered about Bucky.

What HYDRA, within SHIELD, had done to his best friend.

He still needed to find Bucky.  He was out there, somewhere, and that had to be his priority.

Still, he was being faced with the results of his actions, and he had to admit they weren’t pretty. 

“How many?” he found himself asking.

Stark, Pepper, and Banner all glanced at each other.  Then, Stark answered, “Too many.”

Pepper wasn’t going to let it stay at that, however. She stalked toward Steve, leaning over him, and in her designer suit and heels she looked both terrible and beautiful at the same time.  “The youngest victim of your ‘crusade’ was five weeks old; the oldest, ninety-seven.  Both weren’t even _in_ SHIELD.  They were family of SHIELD agents, and HYDRA found them because of the records you were responsible for letting out so anyone could see.  Those are the ones who suffered, Captain…certainly not HYDRA, which has just gone dark again.  Someone is going to have to root them out, and there’s no one left to do that.  SHIELD is gone; they don’t have the resources left.  The US government is in denial, believing that both organizations are dead and tarring them with the same terrorist brush.  HYDRA will just go back to into hiding.  I hope you’re happy with yourself, because whatever you thought you were doing _didn’t_ _work_.  Unless you think the body count of innocents like that _baby_ and that _grandmother_ and _Agent_ _Phil_ _Coulson_ was worth it.”

Okay, this was a little bit more than what Steve had thought would happen.  Yes, he’d considered the SHIELD agents that would have been left out in the cold when SHIELD had imploded under the weight of its secrets.  Those agents could take care of themselves and, if some were lost, they certainly had known the risks of working for an organization as shady as SHIELD had been.

But he hadn’t thought about children.  Or helpless family members.  Hell, he hadn’t even thought about any sort of disabled agents who wouldn’t be able to protect themselves.  And yet, it had been obvious to anyone with eyes to see.

He was beginning to suspect that it had been obvious to Nick Fury, who’d fought against this action and then, in the end, had acquiesced because he’d been outnumbered.

“I’m gonna track down Fury and dig him out of whatever hole he’s dug himself and shake him til his teeth rattle,” Stark vowed.  “We knew he was a lying liar who lies, but this…”  He shook his head.  “We need to tell Barton.”

Natasha started.  “No, we can’t.”

Steve looked away from Pepper’s incandescent rage, eyes meeting Natasha’s.  He remembered how Clint Barton had reacted when he’d learned the Coulson had died; he had been completely wrecked by the knowledge.  That had been when Natasha had admitted that Barton and Coulson had been together for years, and as close to being a married couple as two men could get and not actually _be_ married.

That had been a shock, and not just to him.  Tony had gone on about some cellist that Coulson had supposedly been seeing, and then had slapped himself in the head when he’d put the words ‘cellist’ and ‘bow’ together, calling Coulson a sneaky spy bastard for keeping that particular relationship a secret.

Also, Steve hadn’t been told at that point that homosexuality so much more accepted now.  He’d done some research, and had discovered that it wasn’t illegal any longer, and there were even some states where same-sex couples could get legally married.  He’d also given himself a crash course in all the sorts of different sexualities, and it had been a revelation.  It was possibly one of the few good things to come out of awakening in this time.

“You don’t think he deserves to know?” Pepper asked incredulously.

“I know Clint,” the Widow answered.  “He…loved Coulson.  If you think he was destroyed when he’d believed that Coulson was dead…can you imagine what this will do it him?  He’s just really beginning to heal – “

“If you call fucking off to Bed-Stuy and taking on the Russian mob _healing_ ,” Stark snorted.  “And yes, I _did_ keep tabs on him, because I was worried about how he’d reacted to Coulson’s death.  I tried to get him to come and live here in the Tower, but he wouldn’t do it.  Instead, he quit SHIELD, bought a run-down apartment building, and gained himself a dog and a baby vigilante.  I won’t even get into all the self-destructive behavior he’s been showing lately.  It’s been worse than I was when I was dying.”  He turned his glare on Natasha.  “And what did you do for your _friend_ , Widow?  Oh right…you went back to SHIELD and left him on his own, you trailing after Rogers instead like some awestruck puppy.”

Steve almost missed the twitch, but then he’d been looking right at Natasha.  In anyone else, that tiny movement would have been a full-blown flinch.  Steve knew hers and Barton’s history together and, while it had seemed strange at the time that she wasn’t helping support him in his grief a bit better, he really hadn’t questioned it, figuring it wasn’t any of his business.   

“He told me to leave,” she murmured.  “He wanted to be on his own, and I let him because I _am_ his friend and have known him a lot longer than you have, Stark. So back off and stop blaming me for something that Clint _himself_ wanted.”

“Look,” Banner stepped forward, “these recriminations aren’t getting us anywhere.  HYDRA is still out there, and Pepper’s right: they’ve just gone to ground, and it’s not just the US government with their heads in the sand over it.  It’s nearly the entire world, and that’s going to cause nothing but trouble in the future if we don’t do something about it.  The Avengers are going to be needed, and we have to stick together if we’re going to accomplish anything.”  He gave a small, self-imprecating smirk.  “And yes, the man with the towering anger issues is acting the peacekeeper in this situation.  It just goes to show how messed up things are at the moment.”

That earned Banner a snort from Stark, and it made Pepper back off a little. She favored the scientist with a slight smile as she walked past him, joining Stark at the workbench and leaning against the man, not seeming to care about the oil-stained clothing the genius was wearing and how it might get the expensive business suit she had on dirty. 

“Look,” Stark said, “Brucie Bear’s right.  At least in public we need to show a united front.  We’re gonna need to work together on this.  And I’m afraid this means getting Barton back onboard as well.  Like it or not, Romanov, he’s an Avenger, too.  And you can’t tell me he wouldn’t want to get a few licks in on HYDRA himself.  He worked for SHIELD; he was one of the good guys.  This whole shit has to rankle.”

Natasha crossed her arms over her chest, but she lost the slightly belligerent expression in her eyes.  “You’re right.  If anything, HYDRA being inside SHIELD would have affected him worse.  He’s had a lot of betrayal in his life, and this would have just added to it.  I’ll go and talk to him.  But,” and she uncrossed her arms so she could stab a finger in Stark’s direction, “I’m putting this on record that telling him about Coulson would be a mistake.”

It made Steve wonder if he’d been better off not knowing about Peggy, the way she was now.  Would he have been happy with being kept in the dark about her condition?  About not being able to speak to her, even though she would often reset more times than he could count during their conversations?

The answer was made itself known immediately. 

“You should tell him,” he spoke before he’d even realized he’d done it.  “Barton needs to know.  Even if Coulson never recovers…it’s his chance to finally say goodbye if things go badly.  And, if Clint feels even a fraction of what I felt about Peggy, then he deserves to know.”

Natasha met his gaze squarely, and Steve knew what she read in his eyes.  Of anyone in this room, Natasha Romanov knew how he felt about Peggy, and what it meant to him to be able to speak to her, even those times when she didn’t know who he was. 

Her entire body slumped in defeat, and she nodded once, jerkily, giving into what he was trying to communicate to her.  Steve was confident she’d make the correct decision in the end.

“Well, now that that’s over,” Stark said, “we should be seeing about finding Fury, and trying to pick up HYDRA’s trail.  We need to make sure they’re taken down, once and for all.”

Steve wanted to argue, to go out there himself.  He wanted to be looking for Bucky.  He’d planned on asking both Natasha and Sam to help him. 

But Stark was right: HYDRA was still active, and what he’d done to flush them out had simply sent them on a rampage, and then back underground once more.  And maybe taking down HYDRA would get him to Bucky, eventually.

He glanced back up at the hologram that displayed the damage that had been done to Agent Coulson.  Whoever this Dr. Simmons was, she was right about one thing: that sort of catastrophic injury would certainly have been deadly.  Whatever Fury had done to bring the man back had obviously failed terribly.  And, if he hadn’t outed HYDRA, Coulson might have lived the rest of whatever life he had up in that long-term care facility, and no one would have known he was alive.

It made him think of Peggy, resident in her own facility and suffering from dementia.  Was it the same thing?  No, not by a long shot.  Peggy hadn’t been affected by HYDRA’s resurgence.  Coulson had. 

He still believed he’d done the right thing.

Now, though, there was a niggling doubt in the back of his mind that, maybe, there might have been another solution.

But Steve Rogers was stubborn.  He wasn’t about to admit those tiny, second thoughts to anyone.

HYDRA had needed to be taken down.  It just hadn’t turned out the way he’d thought it would.

 

**********

 

_Draw._

_Breathe._

_Loose._

The repetitive movement of arm and string and arrow was like a balm to Clint Barton’s soul as he fired at the target at the far end of the roof, a target that was already full of holes.  The sun wasn’t out; it was cloudy in his section of New York, but it was still warm enough that he was sweating in the sleeveless t-shirt he was wearing.  Heat from the tar roof penetrated through the soles of his combat boots, making his feet uncomfortable, but he ignored it in favor of the focus of putting even more holes into the target.

_Draw._

_Breathe._

_Loose._

Clint didn’t know how long he’d been up on the roof.  His shoulders were beginning to really feel the burn, so it had to have been a while.  It didn’t matter; archery was one of the very few things that kept his mind from wandering where it didn’t need to go, so he kept at it, hoping to tire himself out enough that he could sleep tonight.

He hadn’t slept a night through ever since Loki.  Hell, Clint hadn’t been much of a sleeper _before_ Loki…well, that was until he’d begun sleeping with Phil…

No, he still couldn’t think of his lover’s name without a sudden rush of guilt, pain, and regret.

Now, though…the nightmares were getting a little better, and the SHIELD shrinks that Fury had insisted he visit had been of some small help when he’d actually gone, but only enough to let him be honest with himself and to admit that there wouldn’t be any coming back from this.

He understood that Eric Selvig had been institutionalized.  Clint had to wonder how he, himself, had escaped that particular fate.

Then, SHIELD had turned out to be HYDRA, and that had had him second-guessing things he’d been so proud of before.  He’d believed himself to be on the side of the angels, after so long of being firmly in the devil’s pocket, and to learn that what he’d been told to do might have had been at the order of some hidden Nazi bigshot…and he didn’t even want to _think_ about the missions he’d been on with Jasper Sitwell, who’d been Phil’s friend and who’d turned out to be a HYDRA traitor. 

Thinking of HYDRA being a part of SHIELD was the only time he could mentally say Phil’s name without all the emotional baggage that came along with it, and it was only because he was grateful that his lover had died before this shit had gone down.  It would have broken Phil’s heart after all the years he’d given to an organization he’d believed in.

“Your nose is sunburned.”

It was a credit to Clint that he didn’t jump at the sound of that unexpected observation.  “Didn’t think I’d need the sunscreen on a day like this.”

_Draw._

_Breathe._

_Loose._

He didn’t look at her.  It had been months since he’d last seen Nat, and while he’d always love her this extended separation had been just fine with him.  Her presence made him recall the heady days of Strike Team Delta, with him and her and Phil teaming up together to save the world and being damned good at it.

But had they really been saving the world?

Clint was seriously beginning to doubt that.

He wondered if Nat did, too.  She had to be.  He’d heard her horror stories of the Red Room, and how she’d been hollowed out and made an unstoppable weapon, and had been used at her masters’ bidding to do whatever they’d ordered her to do.  This had to have brought back bad memories for her, as well.

“You really looked great on TV,” he commented, still not looking at her.  Instead, he made his way toward his target to retrieve his arrows.  “I think you might have given Stark a run for his money.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

She sounded good, if a little tired. 

Clint still didn’t look at her.  He carefully pulled his spent arrows from the wooden plank he’d set up as a practice target, checking each one of them before sliding them back into his quiver.  “I thought you’d be lying low by now.”

“That was the plan, before Pepper Potts showed up in Washington DC to fetch both me and Steve, and our new friend Sam.”

Huh.  That wasn’t as much of a surprise as it might have been if Stark hadn’t been trying to get him to move into the Tower for the last several months.  “What…she want you and Rogers to join the boy band again?”  He couldn’t help the bitterness that laced the question.

“No.  She wanted to tell us off for taking down HYDRA without thinking about what we were doing.”

Now, that had him spinning around to face her, quite frankly surprised by that response.

Natasha was leaning against the doorway leading into the building.  Anyone else would have thought she was being majorly nonchalant, but Clint had known her for years, and could see the slight stress lines around her mouth and the tiredness in her eyes.  A part of him wanted to go over and hug her, but the larger part of him wanted to stay where he was, so he could see her as she explained that last remark. 

He quirked an eyebrow at her, prompting her to continue.

Natasha rolled her eyes…well, anyone else might not have noticed the movement, but Clint did.  “She and Stark have been cleaning up after us.  It…appears there have been innocents caught up in our fight against HYDRA, and they were both quite happy to take us to task over it.”

Clint couldn’t hide his flinch, but at the same time he could have told her that would happen, if she and Rogers had bothered to consult him.  Which, by the way, it had been within their rights not to do just that, and he didn’t blame them for it.  He was messed up, and really nobody should be trusting him at the moment.

“Stark had a point…HYDRA isn’t gone.  They’ve just gone back into hiding, after making certain strikes against soft targets who couldn’t defend themselves.  The Avengers are going to be needed, now more than ever.”

Clint shook his head.  “You don’t want me, Nat.”

She stepped forward one, hesitant step, as if she was afraid he was going to suddenly bolt.  Not that he could go very far; after all, they were on a roof, and he didn’t happen to have a handy grappling arrow with him at the moment.  He’d thought he hadn’t needed it, and he wasn’t nearly suicidal enough to take a flying leap without one.  “We do, Clint.  I know you’re as conflicted about what we did for SHIELD as I am.  This is our chance to make up for anything we might have done…to wipe out a bit of the red in our ledgers that’s there because HYDRA tricked us into doing things we wouldn’t have done if we’d known.”

She took another step toward him.  The arrow pendant that he’d given her a couple of birthdays ago glittered against her skin in the diffuse sunlight.  Clint could recall the small, pleased smile she’d given him as she’d put it on. 

Phil had helped him pick it out.

Clint’s eyes began to burn, and he turned away to finish pulling his arrows out of the target, using a little more force than he probably should have done.  “I’m a landlord now,” he muttered.  “I have responsibilities.  A Hawkeye in training.  A dog.  I’m damaged goods now, Nat.  I doubt I’ll be of any use to you at all.”

He was tired.  He just wanted to be left alone.

“Clint,” she tried again, “we need you.  You can’t hide out here forever.”

“Try me,” he gritted, putting the last of the arrows back into their place in his quiver.  “I’m out of the fight, Nat.  Sure, knowing that I might have done work for HYDRA bothers me, but…”

It did _bother_ him.  Of course it did.  Clint had trusted SHIELD to do the right thing, and then to have found out that HYDRA might have been using him to forward their agenda…it added to his nightmares.

“We need you,” she reiterated, a hand held out to him.  “The Avengers need you.”

Clint shook his head.  “I’m sorry.  I’m just…I can’t do it.  I’m not that person anymore.”

Something flickered in her eyes then, something small and tentative, as if she wanted to tell him a secret but didn’t dare. 

“What is it?” he asked, moving almost into her personal space, worried for her.  He might be denying her what she wanted, but she was still as close to him as a sister, closer to him than anyone but one person on Earth, who was now dead and buried in a grave in Wisconsin.

“You realize that you might not be safe here anymore?”

He had the distinct impression that wasn’t what she’d wanted to say, and called her on it.  “I’m just not that important to HYDRA to come after, it seems to me.”  Frankly, Clint thought maybe they believed he wasn’t worth the trouble.  God knew he didn’t think he was himself.

“Please,” she murmured.  “I just…I need you to come to the Tower.  You might think you’re not important, but you’re an Avenger, no matter what.  Don’t you think there was a good reason that Stark’s been trying to get you there?  Every single one of us is worried about you, and don’t even think that you’re not on HYDRA’s hit list.  They have to be careful now, and when it’s time…trust me when I say you will never be off their radar, no matter how long it takes for them to make a move.  And we do need you, Clint.  It’s just your poor self-esteem that makes you think we don’t.”

Damnit, he hated it when Nat pointed that out.  Phil had tried really hard to get him to realize that he was so much more than an uneducated carnie who had great aim, and Clint had begun to believe it…but then, Phil had been killed and SHIELD had practically turfed him out on his ass.  He’d become a liability, and that knowledge had wiped out years of positive reinforcement pretty much overnight.  

Still, and if Clint had to be honest with himself, he usually did whatever Natasha wanted him to do.  She was the last person he still had in his life at the moment, and they’d saved each other more times than they could count.

Well, Nat probably _did_ keep track.  But Clint never had.  It just hadn’t seemed all that necessary.

This time, though…this time, he was done.  He knew it.  He didn’t have a place on a team of superpowered people.  He just wanted to fix things for his tenants, walk his dog, and teach his protégé things he’d never learned when he was coming along.

“No, I’m sorry.” He said firmly.  “That might have worked before, but I’m just really tired.  HYDRA doesn’t have a reason to come after me, and I don’t have a reason to leave here and be an Avenger.”

Besides, he got the feeling she was keeping something important from him, and he wasn’t about to play that game, not with her.

Clint went to move past her, but Nat reached out almost too quickly to see, grasping his arm and pulling him to a halt.  He met her gaze, ready to demand that she let him go, but her face…it was broken open for perhaps the first time he’d ever seen, every single emotion visible in her eyes, the set of her jaw, and the slight trembling of her lips.

She was so very close to telling him what was really on her mind. 

He wasn’t so sure he wanted to hear it now, just from the way she was behaving.

“Clint,” she began. 

He could tell she was torn.  That, whatever she knew, she didn’t want to say.  Clint didn’t know if it was because it was just plain bad news and didn’t want to burden him, or if it was something he really wouldn’t want to hear.  

Maybe it was a combination of both.

Her hand slid down to grasp his.  Clint cocked his head, confused.  Usually Natasha told it like it was, and this hesitation wasn’t like her at all.  “You know you can tell me anything.”

“I know.  This is just…hard.”

“Take your time.”  He’d wait for as long as it took, just as she would have done the same thing for him.

Finally, Nat took a deep breath, and began.  “You know I mentioned that…innocents had been involved after we took down SHIELD and HYDRA.”

Clint nodded.  He hadn’t been overly surprised at that happening.  It wasn’t just agents who’d been SHIELD; there had been admins and mechanics and others in support positions that hadn’t had a thing to do with going out in the field.  An organization like SHIELD couldn’t have been in business very long without that support system.  And he’d personally known that Lisa down in HR had had a fiancé that worked for a bank, and that Maurice in Accounting had had a husband and that they’d been thinking about adopting.  Those had been the ones who’d been in the worst danger from the pitched battle that had broken out when HYDRA had been exposed, but there hadn’t been a thing that Clint could have done to help, not with his extremely limited resources.  He was glad that Stark had taken up that task.

“Stark…found out about a SHIELD long-term care facility that catered to high-level agents who had been…damaged, in the line of duty, and couldn’t take care of themselves any longer.  HYDRA found it, and attacked it.”

She paused, and Clint waited for her to continue.  This was obviously something important to her, and he wanted to make sure she had the chance to explain.

“One of the residents there…they called him Agent Clark…” she said something under her breath that Clint didn’t catch, but she reached into her pocket for her phone.  He watched as she swiped the lock screen, thumbing through to find something on it.

Then she handed the phone to Clint.

Who promptly felt as if the world had dropped out from underneath his feet as he saw the picture she showed him.

 

**********

 

Tony had work to do.

He knew, at that moment, Widow was in Bed-Stuy talking to Clint, and he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to know how _that_ conversation was going.  Yes, he was a coward on that front because, while he knew they really needed to tell Hawkeye that the love of his life was still alive, Tony didn’t want to be the one to do it.  It would bring on all sorts of feelings he didn’t want to acknowledge and things would just be way too uncomfortable.

No, he was fine in his lab, trying to work on his newest armor while JARVIS ran all sorts of searches for him.

There was the search for that one-eyed bastard, Fury.  They needed to know what he’d done to bring Agent back, if they had any hope of fixing it.  Tony had the sinking feeling that he wasn’t going to like it one bit, even though he was glad that Coulson wasn’t really dead.  The shell of the SHIELD agent who’d babysat him when he’d been dying and who’d gone up against Loki with no back-up and an untested weapon was, though, in a lot of ways worse than being dead.

There was another search of all the data that Natasha had so helpfully dumped on the internet, and there was a lot of it.  He’d set up God knew how many buzzwords for his pet AI to look for, hoping to find out where HYDRA might have gone, and if there were any sorts of info on whatever the hell Fury had done to Coulson.

He’d thrown in Tahiti, for the hell of it.  After all, that seemed to be the only word that Coulson reacted to, according to Dr. Durance and the recovered records from the SHIELD nursing home.  Both Bruce and Jemma had been fascinated by the brain scans that had been taken at the time, and they were currently trying to figure out just what it all meant. 

They were talking about sticking Agent back into another brain scan machine and seeing the effects for themselves.  Which was fine, but there was a little part of Tony who was wondering if that sort of thing was strictly ethical, since Coulson couldn’t consent to it.  He was all for experimentation and shit, but there was no telling just what it did to Coulson every time it happened, and the last thing he wanted to do was to hurt the guy. 

Damn, but that info-dump had been like throwing out chum to circling sharks.  Everyone, from world governments to terrorist organizations to hacktivist groups like the Rising Tide were jumping on the released SHIELD files, and Tony was asking JARVIS to try to keep track of it all, which was really an impossible task even for someone as awesome as JARVIS was.  It had crossed his mind to try and scrub it all off the ‘net, but gave it up very quickly as a lost cause.  There was just too much, and while JARVIS was amazing and Tony himself wasn’t a slouch in the hacking department, there was no way they’d be able to get it all. 

Oh, he’d tried.  When he’d discovered that personnel files had been included with the other stuff Romanov and Rogers had released into the wild, Tony had done his best to collect it all.  He’d failed; of course, he’d failed.  But he’d managed to save quite a few, and to make them as safe as he possibly could.  Still, so many had been lost, because Tony hadn’t been fast or good enough.  So much death and pain, when all it would have taken was for Rogers and Romanov to come to him, and he could have used every bit of know-how he had to get into the SHIELD servers and dig up everything they’d needed to take down HYDRA and no one would have been hurt.  Well, HYDRA would have, but they deserved it.

He suspected that a lot of what Cap had done was motivated by his past.  Plus, there was Barnes to consider, although Tony had found all that out after the fact.  Would he have reacted any better if it had been Rhodey grabbed and brainwashed?  Or, God forbid, Pepper?  It was a sobering thought to realize that he would’ve torn the world down for them, just as Rogers had done with SHIELD. 

Still, Tony liked to think he’d have done more to save the ones who didn’t deserve what happened to them, instead of letting them all go to hell and not give a damn.

“Tony,” Pepper’s voice interrupted his rather tumultuous thoughts.  He turned to face her, giving up any pretense of work that he might have been attempting.  She was standing in the door, arms crossed, looking as fierce and beautiful as she always did.  Her eyes still carried the outrage that she’d been feeling ever since he’d helped Dr. Durance bring in her patients…including the man who’d been Pepper’s friend. 

It bothered him that he hadn’t realized just how close Pepper and Coulson had become until the agent’s ‘death’.

There was something else in her eyes now, something that Tony couldn’t identify.  “What is it?” he asked, suddenly very concerned.

“I think we have a new source of information,” she told him.

“Do tell.”

A smirk curled up one side of her mouth.  “Maria Hill just showed up, looking for a job.”

 

**********

 

Tony let Pepper handle Hill…well, more like Pepper demanded to and Tony, being the genius that he was, let her.  He wasn’t stupid.  Pepper could kick ass with the best of them and, besides, Hill was more likely to relax around her than with him in the room.  Tony knew his reputation, and was self-aware enough to recognize that he set a lot of people’s teeth on edge. 

Sure, he did a lot of that on purpose, but he wasn’t about to admit that.

He also wasn’t about to _not_ watch, so he had the camera in the interview room on as he stayed in his workshop, pretending to be doing _actual_ work.

He really wasn’t all that familiar with Maria Hill.  The first time he’d ever met her had been on the Helicarrier, and he could tell she was a shoot first, ask questions later, kind of person.  He did know that she’d been Fury’s second-in-command in SHIELD’s Triumvirate of Terror – Fury, Hill, and Coulson; while Coulson had been Fury’s One Good Eye, Hill had been his Strong Right Arm. 

And there she was, sitting there, looking smart in a black pantsuit and calm in a way a lot of people looking for a job weren’t.

As Tony watched, Pepper entered the room.  It was like all of the interview rooms in HR – friendly, inviting, and pretty much devoid of anything like a personality. There were several; someone had thought it would be a really good idea to have offices specifically set up for interviewing, for a lot of reasons that mostly had to do with security.  Not that Tony really cared, to be honest.  He wasn’t all that interested in the intake process.  He had people who were good at that sort of thing and he was basically content to let them at it.

_“Deputy Director Hill,”_ Pepper greeted her pleasantly, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table that Hill sat at.

_“Ms. Potts,”_ Hill said in return.  _“Although that’s not my title anymore…as I’m sure you’re aware. SHIELD doesn’t exist anymore.”_

_“I’m aware.”_ Tony had to appreciate her ability to sit there, being all nice.  He was pretty certain he wouldn’t have been able to do it.  _“I understand you’re looking for a job with SI.”_

_“I am.  I have skills that might be useful, and I needed the work now that my organization managed to become infested with bad guys.”_

_“I understand you helped take SHIELD down.”_

In the high resolution of the cameras, Tony could see Hill frowning slightly.  _“I thought Captain Rogers had a point when he argued for it.”_

_“And you didn’t take into consideration any sort of innocent lives that might get caught in the crossfire?”_ Pepper was still being unbelievably polite.  Tony was impressed.

_“I’m not certain what that has to do with me getting a job with SI.”_ Hill actually sounded confused. 

_“We here at Stark Industries care about our employees and their families.  We cannot hire someone who doesn’t feel the same way.  And, after what happened with SHIELD and all of its secrets being divulged, a great many people were hurt.  Tony and I have been helping those we can, but it’s affected children as well as non-SHIELD adults.  That sort of callous disregard isn’t something we can tolerate.”_

Hill was obviously surprised that she was getting turned down so quickly.  _“We did what we had to do – “_

_“I also have to wonder if you’re coming to us because you’re afraid you could be arrested, and feel that the Stark legal team might be persuaded to keep you out of prison.”_

Oh, but Tony loved that woman.  He actually hadn’t considered that motivation, but it made sense.  The governments of the world were painting SHIELD as a terrorist organization just as much as they were HYDRA, conveniently forgetting all the good that SHIELD had been responsible for in the past.  And being the Deputy Director would have put Hill right in the crosshairs, so to speak.  The secrets she had to be carrying around in her head would have been worth a lot to whoever would get their hands on her first.

He wondered if she’d end up making some sort of deal with the government if they turfed her out on her ass.  He could see it, and Tony doubted that would turn out well for all concerned. 

Hill looked unhappy, but she said, _“You’re right.  I have a lot of knowledge that wasn’t dumped out onto the internet, and that really can’t get into anyone else’s hands…and it will, eventually, if I can’t get some sort of protection.  But I also have skills that can be useful, and I’m more than happy to share what I know with trustworthy people.  You’re also going to need some sort of liaison to the US government, and I can be that.  I also know where Fury had several secret bases, and I’m willing to hand those over to Stark Industries to be used as you see fit.  There will also be physical files in those locations, with information that can’t get out.  But I think you and Mr. Stark are the right people to have that.”_

_“I see.  And does any of that information have to do with what Director Fury did to Agent Coulson?”_

If Tony hadn’t been watching closely, he would have missed the minute flinch Hill gave at that question.  _“I don’t know what you mean.  Agent Coulson died right before the Battle of New York.”_

Pepper gave her a sharp smile.  _“But we know that’s not true, don’t we?”_

_“I’m not sure where you’re getting your information from – “_

_“I’m getting it from the presence of Agent Coulson in our Medical Section.  The long-term care facility he’d been hidden in was attacked by HYDRA, and the administrator was able to get a distress call sent out.  We heard it, and Iron Man went to the rescue.  Imagine his surprise at seeing Phil Coulson among the patients there…”_

Now, the surprise was more overt, and Hill sat back, losing whatever calm she’d had.  _“Was he hurt?”_ she asked, and Tony was a little dumbfounded by her sudden concern.

_“No,”_ Pepper admitted.  _“But he doesn’t respond much beyond tracking us with his eyes.  He doesn’t speak, we have to feed him, and he’s confined to a wheelchair.”_

Hill scrubbed her hands over her face tiredly.  _“I argued against it, but Fury was adamant on bringing him back.”_

_“How did he do it?”_ Pepper pressed.  _“Was Coulson really dead?”_

_“He was…he was dead for days.”_

Tony couldn’t help his mouth dropping open.  How was that possible?  He wasn’t a medical doctor, but he knew damned well that people couldn’t be revived after being dead that long.

What the fuck did Fury _do_?

_“There was this project,”_ Hill went on, sounding as if Pepper’s presence was physically pulling the information out of her, _“it was called Project TAHITI.  It was created in case of the death of an Avenger, in order to resurrect them.  Only, there were…side effects, and Coulson threatened to turn in his resignation if it wasn’t shut down.”_

Suddenly, Tony’s respect for Coulson – which had been considerable – went up several more notches, because he’d sat and talked with what was left of Agent and if he’d died he wouldn’t have wanted to be brought back to face that sort of half-life.   

But this also explained Coulson’s weird reaction to the word ‘Tahiti’, although not his only spoken phrase, ‘It’s a magical place’.  He really wanted to know what prompted _that_ sort of response in a person who was practically comatose.

_“But it wasn’t.”_ The horror in Pepper’s voice was evident through the surveillance feed. 

_“Well, that’s not exactly true.  Fury_ did _shut it down…but when Coulson was killed, he decided to use it on him, because he felt the positives of having Coulson back outweighed the risks involved.”_

_“And what we’re seeing are the side effects?”_

Hill shook her head.  _“No.  Those are something different, but I don’t know how; Fury didn’t bother to share that with me.  I know that something went wrong.  They were able to regenerate his heart and heal the damage, but when they went to do the memory alteration – “_

_“Wait, what?”_ Pepper demanded, aghast.

_“Erasing the memory of the procedure was the only way to get rid of the side effects.  Remembering the treatment always seemed to bring them out in the first volunteers for the project.  So, a full memory wipe and the implantation of false memories was the only way to keep them from happening.  Only…Coulson’s memories weren’t wiped all the way, because Fury wanted him to be able to come back to work.  The…doctor who was in charge of Coulson’s revival believed that it was the nature of the partial memory wipe that caused all the brain damage, but he couldn’t be sure.  All I know is that Coulson suffered some sort of stroke…at least, that what I was told.”_

Tony wanted to be ill.  This was…he’d thought that Coulson being in the condition he was currently in had been awful.  But what Fury had done…actually going as far as memory manipulation, that was just plain _wrong_.

He really wanted to storm into that room and shake Hill until her teeth rattled, but he’d given Pepper his word that he’d stay out no matter what Hill said.  But, damnit, it was hard to keep that promise!

Of all the SHIELD agents Tony had dealt with, he’d respected Phil Coulson the most.  He didn’t put up with any shit, which was always a plus where Tony Stark was concerned since he could sow the shit better than a lot of people.  Coulson had been like Pepper that way; according to Pepper it had been the basis of their friendship. 

And now…the guy was wrecked.  And all because Fury had to play God and bring back a dead man despite having been told it would be a _really bad idea_. 

Pepper was shaking her head, and Tony thought she looked as sick as he felt.  _“We want to get our hands on everything there is about the procedure.”_

_“I can’t help you there,”_ Hill denied.  _“I only know what TAHITI was, not how it worked.  Fury kept that close to his vest and only on paper copy.”_

Which explained why Tony and JARVIS hadn’t been able to find out anything about it in their data-mining of what had been dumped into the wildness of the internet.

_“Then there’s really nothing you can offer us.”_ Pepper got to her feet, preparing to leave. 

For the first time Tony had been a witness to, Hill looked vaguely panicked.  _“Wait…there was a doctor, named Streiten.  He was involved in the project.  Find him, and you’ll get your answers.”_

_“And not former Director Fury?  And before you say anything, we know he’s alive as well, thanks to Captain Rogers and Ms. Romanov.”_

_“They’re here as well?”_ Hill sounded surprised.  _“I thought for sure they’d be out hunting the Winter Soldier.”_

Tony was a little surprised as well, knowing just who the Winter Soldier really was.  He’d been Rogers’ best friend, and HYDRA had had him all these years.  Knowing what they’d done to Barnes was only adding to Tony’s near-constant, low-level nausea.

But now, Romanov was off talking to Barton; and Wilson, their new friend, was busy helping out with the damaged SHIELD agents they’d managed to bring home.  He thought the only thing that was keeping Rogers in the Tower was the fact that he really couldn’t go on an assassin hunt on his own.

_“We’ve agreed to help Captain Rogers in exchange for his help with our efforts to help those SHIELD agents and their families who are currently being hunted by the various governments after them.  Someone has to look out for the innocents.”_

That wasn’t exactly true, but if anyone could guilt Rogers into anything, it would be Pepper, and besides finding Barnes was only the right thing to do.  He was also an innocent in all this.  It hadn’t been his fault that HYDRA had fucked him up.

Pepper was outraged, and Pepper Potts outraged was a force to be reckoned with, and Tony had no doubt she would be able to convince Rogers to do whatever she wanted him to in the long run.

It was also unbelievably hot, and he was half-hard from just watching.

Not that he was going to admit that.

Well, maybe later.

But for now, Tony was just going to keep that little detail to himself.

Hill seemed to have come to a decision.  _“Let me help.”_

_“How?”_ Pepper sounded almost bored as she sat back down at the table.

_“I know quite a few of Fury’s hidey holes.  I can try to find him for you…and for Coulson.  Coulson was…is…a good man.  He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”_

Tony gave a fist pump…even though only he and JARVIS would’ve been able to see it.  Hill could be just what they needed to track down Fury and get the information they’d need to maybe help Coulson.

He watched as Pepper pretended to consider.  This was what they’d hoped would happen, but they couldn’t give the game away.  And really, Pepper had a much better poker face than Tony could ever hope to have.  That was what made her such a good CEO and the big winner on poker nights.

_“Alright,”_ she allowed.  _“See if you can track down Fury.  And I’ll put the Stark lawyers on your case.  Maybe they can keep you from getting taken into custody.”_

That was a fair trade, at least as far as Tony was concerned.  If Hill could do what Tony and JARVIS hadn’t been able to, then it would be worth it for them to lend Hill the use of the extensive legal department that SI had at its fingertips.

Not that they would have really let her get arrested.  Yes, she might have been in on the whole thing with Rogers and Romanov, but Tony got the distinct impression that she was now honestly seeing the results of their handiwork.  Maybe she’d be of more use after they’d hunted Fury down…

 

**********

 

Steve stepped off onto the Medical floor, the smells of antiseptic and blood heavy in the air…at least, it was to him, with his serum-enhanced senses.  He doubted anyone else would have noticed, so good was the air circulation.

The floor was bustling with nurses in various shades of scrubs going to and fro, to beds and chairs and to the few patients that were ambulatory.  He knew it wasn’t just the ones Tony had pulled out of that nursing home where he’d stumbled over Coulson; many of these people had been agents and relatives of agents, caught in the crossfire between SHIELD and HYDRA. 

He caught sight of Banner, across the room, speaking with one of the nurses Stark had hired to look after these damaged people.  A sudden squealing echoed across the floor, and a child who looked to be about six ran toward Banner, slamming into his legs and wrapping thin arms around his knees.  Steve flinched, wondering if the Hulk would make an appearance at Banner being startled like that, but that didn’t happen. 

Instead, the scientist glanced down at the little girl, smiling at her.  Then, to Steve’s surprise, Banner reached down and lifted her up, perching her on his hip as he continued his conversation with the nurse.

In that moment, it struck home for Steve that Tony and Pepper had been right: that there had been true innocents hurt by what he’d done.  That child hadn’t been either SHIELD or HYDRA, and yet there she was, clinging to Bruce Banner as if he was her father, her head on his shoulder, and the only reason she’d have to have been there was that, somehow, she’d been drawn into the conflict that Steve had created when he’d outed both SHIELD and HYDRA.

A woman approached Banner, a sling keeping her left arm immobilized, and she was apologizing for her little girl even as she chastised the child.  Banner turned toward her, and Steve could hear him saying that it was fine, that she wasn’t in the way, and then asking how the woman was doing.

Steve had to look away.

His eyes tracked along the beds that lined one wall, and then over the chairs that had been arranged along the large floor-to-ceiling windows that had one of the best views of New York that Steve had ever seen.  Sam was there, and to Steve’s surprise he was chatting with Agent Coulson, who was sitting in a wheelchair that had been parked in the corner of the wall and one of the windows, a blanket draped over his legs and his hands folded in his lap.  A bag was hanging from the side of the chair, obviously leading to what had to be a catheter, although Steve couldn’t see past the obscuring tartan lap rug. 

Coulson’s eyes were on Sam, and even though he wasn’t reacting it seemed to Steve as if the agent was paying attention to whatever Sam was saying.  It was a shock seeing Coulson like that; when he’d met the man, back before Loki, the agent had seemed full of life and movement.  He could recall just how embarrassed Coulson had been when he’d talked about watching Steve after he’d been pulled from the ice, and when he’d asked if Steve would sign his trading cards.

The same cards that Fury had used, stained with blood and tossed onto a table, as proof that Coulson was dead.

The first time Steve had seen Coulson in this state, it had been in Stark’s lab, when he and Natasha and Sam had first arrived at the tower.  Now, seeing him there among the others that needed care, Steve felt overwhelmed. 

He’d always hated bullies.  Steve was getting the distinct impression that this was exactly what he was to these people.

A bully that had destroyed their lives.

“Captain Rogers?”

Steve blinked, looking down at the owner of that distinctive, British accent, which reminded him of Peggy’s and caused a small twinge of pain in his chest.  It was a woman, short, painfully young yet in a doctor’s white coat, her light hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail.  Her dark eyes were kind as she regarded him, and she smiled almost shyly when she realized she had his attention.  “I’m sorry,” he apologized.

“Oh, no need to be,” she assured him breezily.  “I was wondering if there was something I can do to help you.”

“I just…” he made a vague gesture, encompassing the entire room.

She looked as if she understood.  “It’s horrible, isn’t it?” she asked quietly.  “I and my best friend could have ended up in this room…in completely different circumstances, of course.”  Then she visibly shook herself.  “Oh, I’m sorry…I’m Simmons.  Doctor Jemma Simmons…well, Agent, I suppose, although SHIELD doesn’t exist any longer.”  She held out her hand.

Steve accepted it.  Her hand was tiny and delicate in his, and he remembered doubting her when Stark and Pepper had mentioned her.  He wondered how he could have, there was something about her that just screamed sincerity.  He’d been expecting someone older even though Stark has called her a kid, and not this child, with her pretty face, old mottled bruising around her temple and a mostly healed scrape on her cheek.  Steve felt a little ashamed of himself for questioning her motives, but then he’d seen the worst that HYDRA could dish out and trust came far too hard for him now.

“I understand you and your…friend…were saved from your lab?” he inquired, feeling a little obligated to make some sort of small talk, although he couldn’t understand why. 

Doctor Simmons nodded.  “Thanks to Mr. Stark.  If he hadn’t shown up, Fitz and I most likely wouldn’t be here…or we’d be like these poor souls.”

“How did Stark know where you were?” Steve wasn’t sure why he was asking.  It was curiosity yes; but there was another motive behind the question, one he wasn’t sure he could identify.

“It was Fitz,” she explained proudly.  “He and I were trapped in our lab, and he built a distress signal out of some of the equipment there.”  She grinned.  “Fitz is a genius, even Mr. Stark says so.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Jemma,” Banner’s voice cut in.  Steve glanced up, and saw the Hulk’s alter ego standing just to the side, no longer holding that little girl, giving the young woman a fond look.  “You’re your own brand of genius.”

An uncomfortable expression crossed her features, and her grin turned shy.  “I’m not anywhere close to Fitz.”

Banner stepped up beside her, resting a hand on her shoulder.  “What you’re doing here has been nothing short of miraculous.  These people like and respect you, and at least two of them wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t helped them.”

The blush that rose up to her ears was adorable.  “I’m just doing what’s right.”  It was mumbled in embarrassment.

“I’m sure that’s enough,” Steve put in, wanting to reassure her. 

“I just wish there was more than I could do.”

“You’re doing everything you can,” Banner said.  “Without you, we’d never have discovered that mysterious chemical in Agent Coulson’s blood.  And you’re doing everything you can to figure it out.”

Simmons straightened.  “At the Academy, we all heard stories about Agent Coulson.  No one really believed half of them, to be honest.  But even if half of what we did hear was true, then he deserves the best I can do to help him get better.  Whatever was done to him…I can only guess that wasn’t pleasant.  There are signs of trauma in his brain scans that don’t line up with the stroke diagnosis that was in his medical charts.  I’m hoping we can find out what it was, and somehow either heal or reverse it.”

“I might be able to help with that.”

The three of them turned.  Stark was standing just inside in the room, Pepper with him…and Maria Hill, who was looking around the medical wing, her eyes losing some of the steeliness that Steve had known her for. 

Then her gaze fell on Coulson, and Hill was striding forward, effortlessly dodging around an older man dragging along an IV pole as he crossed the room, until she was standing in front of the disabled agent.  As Steve watched, she knelt in front of him, next to the chair Sam was seated in, resting a light touch on Coulson’s knee. 

“What do you mean, Mr. Stark?” Simmons inquired. 

“Hill said there was this super-secret project called TAHITI…”

As Stark went on to explain the little that Deputy Director Hill had told them about this project, Steve felt himself become more and more outraged.  Fury had been playing God with the man who was supposed to have been his friend, and that was unconscionable. 

However, if he was angry, the look on Simmons’ face was incandescent.  He suddenly decided he never wanted to get on her bad side…ever.

“That explains so much,” she exclaimed.  “That explains the brain damage we see in the scans.  Agent Coulson’s mysterious reaction to the word Tahiti – “

“His words, ‘It’s a magical place’ must be some sort of trigger,” Banner added.  “It was most likely put in place before whatever they did to erase his memories backfired.”  There was the slightest tinge of green in his eyes, but it didn’t seem as if the Hulk was about to make an appearance.

Steve thought of Bucky, not remembering who he was or who Steve was to him, and got even angrier.  Purposely manipulating someone’s memory was _wrong_ , and despite the consequences he was once again glad he’d taken SHIELD down, if it kept something like this from ever happening again. This was really HYDRA level of wrong. 

“If Fury was willing to do that to a friend,” Stark snarled, “I don’t want to know what he’d do to an enemy.”

“We need to find Fury and get him to explain to us exactly what he did,” Pepper added, her eyes hard and implacable.  “We need to fix this as best we can.”

“I’m not sure what we can do,” Banner admitted.  “Jemma and I will work on it, but the damage is severe, and I’m not exactly that sort of doctor…”

“We need some sort of neuroscientist,” Simmons suggested. 

“Hill mentioned a Dr. Streiten.”  Stark looked lost in thought.  “JARVIS is already combing through SHIELD’s records to see about finding him, but until then I think we need to keep up what we’re doing.”

“He seems aware of what’s going on around him,” the young doctor reported.  “He’s simply unable to respond.  I’m also quite certain he has no memory of who he is…or of who each of you are.  The injury done to his brain is so very severe.”

“Can we get his memories back?” Steve asked. 

“Memories are tricky things.”  Simmons put her hands in the pockets of her coat, features pensive.  “A single memory is made up of so many different senses: perception, smell, touch, and sound…all of it linking together to form the basis of a long-term memory.  Those memories filter through the hippocampus and then into the brain, where they’re stored.  Each memory is made up of all these connections, and disrupting them will cause you to forget.  Like I said, I’m not a neuroscientist, but from what I can see I believe that those connections were disrupted on purpose, and whatever process was used to do that was also meant to make new connections…and thus, new memories.  But the new memories were never made, and I would have to assume that something occurred to prevent them from doing so.”

“I call nuts on you not knowing what you’re doing,” Stark drawled.  “That’s a bit more than I knew about the subject.”

Simmons blushed, a little pleased at the compliment. 

“So,” she continued, “while I can’t say for certain, there yet might be hope that the senses and memories can still reconnect under the right stimulus.  It really would help to know exactly what was done to Agent Coulson if we hope to have any success at discovering a way to rehabilitate him.”

“Hill has volunteered to help with finding Fury,” Pepper said. “If anyone knows the answer to that, it’s him.”

_“Mister Stark,”_ JARVIS spoke up, _“Ms. Romanov is back, and she has Mr. Barton with her.”_

“Send them on up, J,” Stark requested.  He sighed.  “Barton’s not going to take this very well.”

Steve had to agree. 

 

********** 

 

Clint didn’t remember getting to Stark Tower.

When Nat had shown him the picture of Phil, alive, in a wheelchair, he’d felt like he’d completely forgotten how to breathe.  Natasha had pulled him off the roof and down to his apartment, where she’d cleaned him up and got him changed into less stinky clothing, and she also made certain his bow was put away properly and got Lucky to back off when the dog had greeted them at the door somewhat enthusiastically.  He let her move him like he was her puppet, unable to process what was happening.

A part of him had wanted to shrug her off and go to see Phil right away, but Nat was inexorable and he’d been unable to deny her need to take care of him.  It wasn’t as if he could have actually gone anywhere on his own; stunned was too weak a word to use to describe how he was feeling.

Fury had lied.

As she bustled him about, Nat explained how Stark had found Phil.  How damaged he was, and that Clint shouldn’t be surprised if his lover didn’t react to his presence.  No one knew what had happened, how Phil was even alive, but there were people working on it, and on trying to heal him.  And how Nat hadn’t wanted to tell him in case something happened and Phil didn’t recover, but she’d been overruled.

Clint was glad of that, really, even as he was busily being in shock over the very notion that Phil was _alive_.

He couldn’t even hold it against her, that she’d wanted to spare him.  Natasha was his friend; his best friend, the only one who’d respected his wishes to be alone – and yes, he’d known about Stark trying to keep an eye on him.  Tony Stark didn’t have a subtle bone in his body, so his attempts at surveillance were ham-fisted at best.  Still, the man hadn’t come to Clint’s rescue at any time, for which he was grateful.

No, Natasha had wanted to protect him, and that was fine.  But he was glad that she _had_ been outvoted, because not seeing Phil wasn’t an option.

Clint did manage to get his neighbors to look after Lucky, and he left a note for Kate in case she showed up…which was possible, given her penchant for just dropping in without any warning, usually through one of the apartment’s windows.  He’d taught his Hawkeye-in-training well. 

Before he could even react, Nat was done with getting him ready and they were in the car she’d used to come and get him; what it was didn’t even register, only that it was silver and two-door.  The neighborhood passed by out of the window but Clint didn’t see it, so lost in his thoughts was he, his forehead leaning against the glass as his mind wallowed.

The last time he’d seen Phil had been at Pegasus, the same day Loki had shown up and it had all gone to hell.  They’d had breakfast together before parting; Clint to watch out over the lab where the Tesseract was being studied, and Phil to a meeting with Hill.  Clint had kissed his lover goodbye, and a couple of hours later Loki had torn his will away and had made Clint his slave.

And, when he’d come back to his senses after Nat had hit him really hard and he’d decompressed, Phil had been dead, leaving Clint with the guilt of his death on his soul.

Sure, the shrinks Fury had made him talk to had told him it wasn’t his fault, and they’d helped in a way.  Clint had known just the right things to say to get out of going to a lot of those sessions, and then had left SHIELD altogether in the end.  Fury had tried to convince him to stay, but with Phil gone…no, it wasn’t the same anymore, and he couldn’t walk the halls of the Triskelion or the decks of the Helicarrier without remembering what he’d lost. 

Clint had always thought of SHIELD has home…but he’d come to realize that it wasn’t SHIELD, it was Phil Coulson who’d been home to him.

Natasha drove him to the Tower in a silence that was vaguely uncomfortable.  Clint was glad that his friend and partner wasn’t much of a talker, because it meant he could consider what she’d told him about Phil’s condition.  If what she’d said was true, then it gave Clint a new purpose: to take care of the man he loved, for as long as they had together.  He knew what Nat would say to that; she’d think he was acting out of misplaced guilt, but that wasn’t the case.

Okay, maybe it was, just a little…

But Clint knew.  Both he and Phil had worked for SHIELD, and they’d faced the knowledge that one or both of them wouldn’t come out whole at the end of their time with the organization.  They hadn’t had to make any promises to each other, it had been assumed that whoever had been the most damaged the other would take care of as best they could. 

It was just that Clint had thought it would have been him, since he was out in the field more than Phil had been.  It had been a safe assumption to make, and Clint had once admitted it.  Phil had simply shaken his head and called him in idiot, saying that he was the older of the couple, and that the stress of his job would most likely give him a coronary long before retirement age.  The archer had actually scoffed at that, claiming that Phil was just too badass to allow his heart to do that to him.

Looked as if Phil had been correct…in a way.  Only it hadn’t been a heart attack that had laid him low.

Clint didn’t register them parking, only that Nat was out of the car.  Clint followed, finding himself inside a parking garage that he’d had no clue how he’d gotten into.  There were all sorts of cars parked, the majority of them worth more than what Clint would have made in a year.  _Stark’s vehicles_ , he thought as they walked toward an elevator in the far wall.

_“Welcome back to the Tower, Mr. Barton,”_ Stark’s AI, JARVIS, greeted them pleasantly as they got into the elevator.  _“Everyone is gathered on the Medical floor.  Sir requests I bring you there.”_

Clint’s heartbeat began to thunder in his ears.  Suddenly, there was a voice in the back of his head that was screaming at him to run, to find the nearest vent and crawl into it for safety, to avoid seeing what he was about to see. 

But he wouldn’t do that.  He needed to see Phil, to find out just what they were dealing with.  To finally be back in the presence of the man he’d loved almost from the moment he’d been recruited into SHIELD and to take care of him the way Phil had done for him, when he’d been all attitude and a hidden mess of inner doubts.

The elevator whisked them upward smoothly, and Clint fidgeted.  A warm hand wrapped around his, and he gave Nat a smile that had to have failed completely judging from the look of pity she was giving him.  Still, the touch grounded him, and he fell still, needing the very familiar sniper’s focus that he’d often relied on as the World’s Greatest Marksman.

Of course, it failed the moment the doors swished open.

The Medical floor was a lot busier than Clint would have thought, but hadn’t Nat said that Stark had been helping out SHIELD agents and their families?  That would certainly explain the sight that greeted him as soon as he stepped out of the elevator.  Men, women, and even children were scattered about the area.  Some were in beds, others in chairs, while others were up and walking around.  All of them wounded in some way, even the ones that Clint couldn’t see any physical injuries on. 

Gathered near the elevator were the rest of the Avengers, except for Thor, who was in London the last Clint had been told; as well as Pepper Potts and a young woman Clint didn’t recognize, but had to have been a doctor judging from the white coat she was wearing.

Still, they hardly registered the moment he caught sight of Phil.

His lover was seated in a wheelchair in a corner of the large, ward-like room, framed on one side by a really large window.  There was a man seated next to him, one that Clint didn’t know, but he was chatting with Phil as if he was expecting some sort of response.  To Clint’s surprise, Maria Hill was kneeling in front of the wheelchair, her hands holding one of Phil’s where it was resting on a brightly patterned blanket that was covering his lap.

Phil was pale, and thin.  His hair was a little longer than Clint knew his lover liked, and a little thinner in the front than the last time he’d seen him.  There was a gash on his forehead, one that had been butterfly-bandaged together, but no other sign of injury.  He was wearing pale blue pajamas, and they looked a little large on him.  Brown slippers poked out from underneath the blanket, sitting on the chair’s footrests which were keeping his feet from touching the tile of the floor. 

Clint wasn’t even aware he was across the room before he was standing in front of Phil, and Hill was moving out of his way to make space for him.

He sank down on his knees, ignoring the discomfort, looking up at Phil.  His pale eyes were unfocussed, not at all like that sharp, knowing gaze that Clint was intimately familiar with.  Fingers trembling, Clint reached out and took Phil’s cool hands in his own, needing to feel that he was alive, and sitting there, even if he was staring at Clint as if he’d never seen him before.

He knew he was crying, but he didn’t want to let go long enough to wipe the tears away.

It took him about a minute to clear the lump from his throat. 

“Hey,” Clint finally forced out, a hoarse whisper he didn’t recognize as his own voice.  Everything Nat had told him about his lover’s condition was at the forefront of his mind, and Clint didn’t expect Phil to answer him, but he had to say something.

“Hey,” he repeated.  “I know you don’t know me, but I’m – “

“Clint.”

It was so quiet he thought he’d imagined it at first.  Phil’s lips moved slightly, and said his name again, in a voice that was husky and rough from disuse. 

He barely registered Pepper saying, “Oh my God,” and a gasp that Clint didn’t know who’d let out.  He was too busy staring up into Phil’s eyes, which were slowly thawing out, meeting his in confusion.

“Yes,” Clint gasped, sobbing out his relief. After what Natasha had said, he’d fully expected to be with a shell of the man he loved, but this… “I’m Clint.”

“Clint,” he repeated, eyes clearing now as he obviously recognized him.

And then, Phil smiled.

 

**********

 

The man who called himself Sam was friendly, and he enjoyed listening to him ramble on about anything. 

He did wish he could answer back, but his mind wouldn’t cooperate.

Still, he could listen, and he let Sam’s calm voice filter down into his very bones, like the sunlight that streamed in through the window he had been seated near.

They were talking about him.  He didn’t need to hear them to know that. 

They were standing a bit of a distance away, and they kept glancing at him. 

Tony.

Pepper.

Bruce.

Jemma.

Steve.

It felt safe.

_He_ felt safe.

But he still wanted the man from his dreams.

The woman who came to kneel in front of him and take his hand…he knew her.  Dark hair, intense gaze…but he didn’t know her name.

Then she called herself Maria, and in his minds’ eye flashed a woman in a dark blue uniform, standing at attention, the sky behind her.  Working together, talking over coffee.  But all that was gone in a heartbeat.

He should know who she was.  But it wouldn’t come to him, dancing just out of his conscious thought.

She wasn’t afraid to hold his hand, like some of the nurses had been.  The red-haired woman, Natasha, hadn’t been either. 

Maria was apologizing, and he didn’t know what for.

She called him Coulson.  That reassured him that this was, indeed, his name, even though it had felt like it fit from the moment Tony had called him that.

But, suddenly, she was standing, moving away, and a man was taking her place.

Changeable eyes under dirty blond hair stared up at him, tears standing in them.  Calloused hands cupped his, and he felt so safe and loved it caused something to rise up inside him, bubbling roughly, demanding to get out.

This man…this was the man in his broken memories.  The one he’d wanted to be with him.

The man spoke.

That voice…it was quiet and harsh, but he _knew_ it. 

Flashes of bows and arrows and purple and _Hey, Boss_ and touches in the dark, pleasure and pain and longing and _need_ and _want_ and he _knew_ this _man_ , like he was a part of him that he’d lost and hadn’t realized it. 

A name rose to his lips.

“Clint.”

Fear and hope and love glittered in those eyes, eyes that he’d seen so many times.

_He remembered_.

“Clint.”

“Yes.  I’m Clint.”

The man he loved was crying, but they were tears of joy.

Phil Coulson smiled.

For the first time in so very long, he knew who he was.

He knew what he’d been missing, and memories slotted back into their places as if he’d never lost them.

 

********** 

 

Nick Fury kept himself busy.

After Rogers and Romanov had taken down SHIELD, he really hadn’t given it much thought to rebuild.

It had taken him about two days to change his mind.

He’d found himself at one of his secret bases, the one called Providence, in the Canadian wilderness.  Agent Koenig had stayed on post, even after SHIELD had fallen, and Fury had been glad of it.  This meant he had someone he could send out of the base, whether to go to contact former agents or for supplies or news.

And there was a hell of a lot of news.

Things were about as bad as he thought they’d be the moment Rogers had demanded that SHIELD needed to fall.

SHIELD was gone.  HYDRA had gone to ground.  Various governments of the world were calling both SHIELD and HYDRA terrorist groups.  People were being arrested just on suspicion, or old enemies were evening old scores.  It was ugly.

In the aftermath, Fury found himself trying to put SHIELD back together again.

It was a challenge he felt more than ready for.

He had his Toolbox.  It allowed him to gather resources for the rebuilding.  He was able to send out Agent Koenig to approach agents who were out in the wind, and had managed to gather a few back under the banner of this new version of SHIELD.

There were also rumors of the carrier, _Iliad_ , being seen out in the Atlantic.  Fury was familiar with her commander, Robert Gonzales, and was already arranging to meet the man and to get him and his crew back into the fold. 

He had people out there, trying to track down what weapons and artifacts were in the wind.  There was a lot of dangerous shit out there, and he couldn’t allow it to fall into the wrong hands.

It was enough work for a lifetime.  It was just what he needed…a new purpose.

He could rebuild SHIELD the right way.  Make it what it should have been…protection, whether it was of one man, or the world.

To be honest, if things hadn’t gone so very wrong it would have been Coulson in this seat.  He would have trusted his One Good Eye to make things the way they should have been all along, to become the heart that SHIELD needed. 

But Coulson…damnit, it had gone so very wrong, although what Fury had done had been for all the right reasons.

Fury didn’t even know if his old friend was still alive.

Hill, though…Hill would land on her feet.  Fury knew she was a survivor, and would take care of herself.  A part of him wanted to look for them both, but he refrained.  Maybe later…

There was a very quiet voice in the back of his mind that whispered to him, telling him the reason he didn’t go and look for Coulson was because he didn’t want to see the once-scarily competent agent in the state Fury had last seen him in.

Regret was something he could little afford, but fuck if he didn’t feel it sometimes where Coulson was concerned.

Streiten had had no idea what had gone wrong.  The previous subjects had gotten through the memory modification just fine.  But Coulson…hadn’t.  He’d become practically vegetative, unable to even piss without help.

And Fury had done that to him.

He sighed, leaning back in the chair at the desk he’d taken over.  Providence was underground, but the images that flashed across the window-like screens were soothing.  Still, he had a lot of work to do before he could think about bed, and Agent Koenig would be in soon enough to bug him about eating.

Fury didn’t know how long he sat there, but he about jerked out of his seat when the base’s alarm began to shrill.

In a heartbeat, he was on his feet, gun out of the drawer he’d been storing it in.  He ran out of the office, and into the empty hallway beyond; there were perhaps a dozen agents now on the base, and if they were under attack they wouldn’t stand a chance if there were superior forces involved.

Still, Fury wasn’t about to go down without a fight.  He’d done that once, and he wasn’t about to do it again.

He hadn’t got very far when Agent Koenig came around the corner.  “What the fuck is that alarm?” he demanded.

“We have incoming, Sir,” Koenig answered.  “It’s Iron Man.”  The man was practically jumping in place.

God save him from _fans_.

How the hell had Stark found this place?  It wasn’t in any database that had been leaked to the public; in fact, there was only one other person besides himself and Koenig who’d known about Providence.

Well, he supposed he knew what had happened to Hill. 

Fury let out a gusty sigh, tucking his gun into his waistband.  “Let him in, Koenig.”

“But, Director – “

“He knows we’re here.  Might as well see what he wants.”

Not that Fury really _wanted_ to, but he knew damned well that Stark wouldn’t go away.  The man was stubborn as hell, and it was obvious he knew exactly where Providence was.

Koenig looked like he wanted to argue and fanboy at the same time.  “I’ll see about getting him a lanyard, then.”

“Don’t bother.  Stark won’t be staying that long.”  Not if Fury had anything to say about it.

He strode down the corridor, his coat billowing out behind him.  He’d given the thing up when he’d first decided to drop out of sight after faking his death, but the moment he’d started the rebuilding he’d gotten it back out.  He felt like the Director wearing it, and he wasn’t about to lie to himself and say that it wasn’t part of his image.  Because it was, and being Nick Motherfucking Fury was about image.  And he needed that to get SHIELD back on its proverbial feet.

He made his way toward the hangar.  It would be the best place to have whatever showdown Stark would be demanding, giving them plenty of space since there wasn’t anything currently inside the place.  Fury wasn’t sure what the hell the man wanted, but he wasn’t going to give it to him if he could avoid it.

Once inside the hangar, Fury used the controls that would slide open the enormous doors, snow drifting in through the widening opening.  Over the sound of the machinery he could just make out the unmistakable sound of the Iron Man suit, and it was seconds later that the familiar red and gold armor appeared in the sky overhead.

Fury watched as Stark maneuvered into the hangar, setting down gently on the reinforced concrete, leaving light scorch marks on the clean surface.  The mask slid upward, revealing the rather smug Tony Stark underneath, and with a flip of a couple of catches the helmet was removed, Stark’s hair in a flattened, mussed-up mess.

“Well, well,” he smirked, “looks like reports of your death, etc.”

“What do you want, Stark?” Fury demanded, not wanting to give the bastard the satisfaction.

“Is that any way to greet an old friend?  Your hospitality has a lot to be desired.”

“What do you _want_ , Stark?” he repeated, putting his hands on his hips.  “It’s not like I don’t have better things to do.”

Stark actually pouted. “You mean, like putting SHIELD back together again?  You realize you’re gonna have an uphill battle doing that, right?”

Fury knew that all too well, and didn’t need Stark to point that out to him.  There was a general, Glenn Talbot, who’d been put in charge of hunting down SHIELD and HYDRA, and he didn’t differentiate between the two.  The military man was a bulldog, and he wasn’t going to let things lie. 

Plus, Fury thought the UN might be up to something, but his contacts weren’t what they used to be so he couldn’t prove that.

“What can I do for you, Stark?”  Maybe if he stated it in a different way, he might actually get an answer before the next century…or before the headache he always got when Stark was around started up again.

 Stark lost the superior expression he had on his face.  Fury had never really seen such seriousness in the genius before, and for some reason it sent a shiver down his spine. Not that he was going to admit that, of course.

“Alright, down to business.  That works for me.”  He tucked his helmet under his arm, dark eyes not leaving Fury’s gaze.  “I have some questions about Phil Coulson.”

Okay, Fury hadn’t been expecting _that_.  “Agent Coulson was killed by Loki just before the Battle of New York.” 

“See, I know that’s a lie, because I found him, Fury…I found him at that nursing home you had him stored away in.”

Shit.

He really had thought that he’d hidden Coulson away, giving him a fake name and fake medical report.  It wasn’t like Coulson could have denied he was Agent Paul Clark; the last thing Fury had ever heard from Coulson’s mouth had been the screaming to let him die.  And he’d be having nightmares about _that_ for a damned long time.

“We want to know what was done to him,” Stark continued. 

Fury gave into the impulse to rub the skin under his eyepatch; it was a gesture he usually only made when he was tired, and in front of someone he trusted, but at that moment he just didn’t give a damn.  “It won’t matter,” he sighed.  “There’s nothing you can do to fix him.”  As much as he wished there was.

“Let us decide that for ourselves, Fury.  We have to try.”

The thing was, Fury was hoping that Stark and his pet scientists could do something.  Phil Coulson had been one of the best men he’d ever had the pleasure of knowing, and one of a handful of people he’d trusted…and he wasn’t afraid to lose fingers.  Bringing Coulson back from the dead had been a no-brainer, really.

And, if things had worked out and the TAHITI process hadn’t been such a failure, Fury would have gotten a good man back – and a good friend, not to forget that part – and, chances were, Coulson would be sitting in the chair that Fury was now, rebuilding SHIELD up from its roots.  There wouldn’t have been anyone else he would have trusted to do it, and that included Maria Hill, because while she’d been an excellent Deputy Director she’d always been a bit impetuous and by-the-book.

“Besides,” Stark went on, “we have some hope that he’s still in there, somewhere.” 

“I don’t know what sort of hope you think you have…” Knowing that Coulson, once one of the best men he’d known, was now confined to a wheelchair, helpless to do anything for himself, was so wrong on so many levels that Fury had begun to second-guess his choice to bring him back.  But, the TAHITI treatment had proved successful in the past, and wiping a person’s memories had been the fix they’d needed for the catastrophic side effects the alien formula had caused in the patients it had been used on. 

Either the mindwipe had failed, or it had been something in the formula itself.  Fury supposed he’d never know.

Well, unless Stark and his scientists could really come up with something.

The grin he got from Stark this time was shit-eating.  “Oh, only the fact that Coulson managed to not only beat off a couple of the HYDRA attackers at that fancy long-term facility you had him at, but he also recognized Barton…and spoke to him.”

Fury’s eyebrows went up.  This was news, and he was a little irritated with himself for not getting Barton up to visit Coulson ASAP to see what happened, but then he’d completely discounted that relationship almost from the moment he’d found out about it. 

He had to wonder just what had occurred; what had jumpstarted Coulson’s damaged mind to let him know who Hawkeye was.  Sure, he’d known about the previous relationship, but to be honest he hadn’t thought it was much of anything.  Both agents hadn’t acted like lovebirds on the job, so really Fury had believed it was just a form of stress relief.

Besides, there’d been that cellist, and in that moment Fury had to wonder if that had been some sort of cover story.  So much for his own information gathering skills…

As for fighting off HYDRA…he would have bet good money that Coulson wouldn’t have been in any sort of physical condition to take on armed assailants.  Of course, this was the guy who’d managed to overpower a pair of armed robbers with a damned bag of flour…

Then the natural cynic in him rose up, and he shook his head, chuckling.  “Are you saying the power of love healed Coulson?” he asked incredulously.  “This isn’t some sort of fucking fairy tale, Stark.”

Stark shrugged nonchalantly, which was impressive considering the armor he was wearing.  “We deal with gods and aliens and all sorts of shit.  Who’s to say fairy tales can’t be real?”  He pinned Fury with a stare that might have been just a little scary if not for the fact that Fury was made of stronger stuff than that.  “So…you gonna give us what we need to help Coulson?  Or do I have to take your super-secret spy base apart with my bare hands?”

The guy’s hands weren’t technically bare, but he didn’t feel the need to point that out.

Fury considered.  Project TAHITI had been Level Ten, and the only reason Coulson had known about it in the first place was because Fury had put him in charge to try to get it up and running, and had discovered the thing didn’t half work in the first place.  And, Hill knew, because she was a damned busybody who’d gone looking for Coulson’s body and, when she couldn’t find it, had demanded to know and had had to be read in if it had worked, and Coulson would have returned to duty. 

But, it hadn’t worked.  And now SHIELD was gone, without the resources to even attempt to recreate the project.

Not that Fury would.  Not after what had happened to Coulson.

He really had nothing to lose, and perhaps he could regain a friend if Stark and his friends could come up with some sort of cure.

“Alright,” Fury capitulated.  “I’ll get you all the information on the procedures we used.  But Stark…if it works, let me know?  Coulson was – is – a friend, and I did what I thought was right.  The world needed him.  _I_ needed him.  And, if it had worked, chances are he’d be in charge of SHIELD right now instead of me.”

Stark nodded.  “You have a deal, although it’s really going to be up to him.  After everything he’s been through, he might not want to ever see your ugly face again.”

“Fair enough.”  It was, especially if Coulson remembered wanting to shelve the project in the first place, let alone his begging to die.  “But Stark…you have to know, the side effects of the treatment were pretty dire.  If you do manage to get him back, he most likely won’t be the same person he was before he died.  There was a reason we tried to wipe his memory of the actual procedure…”

“If anything happens, we’ll help him through it.”  Stark sounded sincere, so Fury took him at his word.

“Okay.  If you’ll wait here, I’ll go and get the information on Project TAHITI and the memory manipulation equipment that was used.”

As Fury turned to go back into the base, Stark called him back.  He turned, waiting for whatever it was that Stark had to say.

So he was surprised when the man said, “Good luck with whatever you’ve got up your sleeve.  I think you’re gonna need it.”

Fury had to agree with that. “Back at you, Stark.”

With a flourish, Fury headed back to his office, a bounce in his step, feeling a little less exhausted than before Stark had shown up.

Maybe, someday, he’d get his friend back.

**********

 

The memories were slowly coming back.

His name was Phil Coulson.

He was an agent of SHIELD.

Pepper Potts was a good friend with a love of fine art and scarily competent.

Tony Stark was a pain in his ass, but that hid someone with a lot of insecurities and a person who genuinely cared.

Captain America had been his hero, but Steve Rogers was a good man, even if he didn’t often think things through.

Bruce Banner was kind, but his kindness masked a hidden anger so big sometimes it couldn’t be contained.

Thor was a god.  But he was also very, very human. 

Natasha Romanov was friend and sister and teammate, and he would always trust her to have his back.

These were people he could trust, along with new friends Sam and Jemma and Fitz and Dr. Durance and Darcy and Jane. 

And then there was Clint.

Clint was his reason for living.  And, for a while, he’d wanted to die because he’d believed Clint was lost to him.

_Let me die!_ He could remember screaming. 

Now, he wanted to live.

And he would.  He had no doubt of that.

He was Phillip J. Coulson. 

And he was alive.

 

_Fin_

 

 


End file.
